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Squeak Foundation Board 2007 Candidates

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Blake-5

Re: election details PLEASE READ

On Wed, 21 Feb 2007 01:10:19 -0800, Stéphane Rollandin
<[hidden email]> wrote:

> Göran Krampe wrote:
>> I love the fact we got Traits - even though it hasn't taken
>> off yet AFAIK - anyone using them btw?
>
>
> I'm waiting for the tools to be ready...

Yeah, it is sort of a struggle.

Cees De Groot

Re: election details PLEASE READ

In reply to this post by Göran Krampe

On 2/21/07, Göran Krampe <[hidden email]> wrote:
> Sidenote: I have toyed with an idea that a Module would simply consist of
> a serialized object chunk (normally a Set of classes a la an mcz snapshot)
> that has required inputs in the form of a list of globals and offered
> outputs in the form of a list of globals.

Would be neat.

On stealing/enhancing: Aspect/S, SmallInterfaces, Traits, Squeak/E,
... - there's a lot already. However, contrary to mainstream
languages, we're at such a high level that it is *hard* to adopt
enhancements that really make the language better...

Andreas.Raab

Re: election details PLEASE READ

In reply to this post by tblanchard

Todd Blanchard wrote:
> Given that AFAICS you've spent the better part of your career hacking
> Smalltalk rather than working in the mudpits, I'm not giving your view
> from a distance a lot of weight.

This is certainly fair as a personal point of view. But since you are
running for a position as a representative of the Squeak community, I
would like you to answer the question with your hat as a (potential)
member of the SqF board. Is a discussion of these issues even worthwhile
in your understanding? Should we actively pursue changes? Do we need to
protect the pureness of Smalltalk? (I'm trying to phrase these questions
as unloaded as possible since I am honestly interested in learning more
about your view on these issues)

> I have years of full time development in these languages - C++ expert,
> Java expert, Objective C expert. Smalltalk - I'm just pretty good.

I didn't question your expertise (but thanks for giving background, it
*is* helpful to understand the perspective with which you look at
Squeak). I was interested in finding out if you see Squeak (both
language and system) moving or not. If you would like to see it moving
or not. And perhaps into which direction (but this is a loaded question
if there ever has been one so you don't need to answer). Etc. If I was
poking a little to directly, I apologize. I'm trying to get a "feel" for
you and (honestly) you have been making statements which you either
haven't thought through very well or which you need to back up with
serious evidence and detail.

You can't just go around and say "every language asymptotically
approaches Smalltalk" and "there has been nothing worth stealing from
the mainstream" as a representative for Squeak. It will get you laughed
out of the room, and I'll be amongst the laughing (and silently
embarrassed to have voted for people that make such silly statements).

Cheers,
- Andreas

Cees De Groot

Re: election details PLEASE READ

On 2/21/07, Andreas Raab <[hidden email]> wrote:
> Should we actively pursue changes?

[I take it you won't mind getting answers from other candidates :-)]

Yes.

The biggest weakness in Smalltalk/Squeak atm is that it doesn't scale
well. At the very least, something in the area of namespacing is
needed - this is one thing that Java got right. And personally, I
think Goran's approach should be adopted ASAP because it is minimal
while getting a long way into the direction of solving the problem at
hand.

Beyond that - modules, components, or what you want to call them. I'm
a Jini adept, and I've seen the power of having a network of
cooperating components work for you. I also like E a lot, and think
that some sandboxing system is required to scale Squeak - we must
clean up the kernel to make it fully capability-based (also something
that Java got more right than most people assume).

Also - I'm discussing this sort of stuff with a friend who's
experimenting with a homebrew language - these components should carry
around more information than just bytecode. They need to be
"multimedial" in a sense, carrying diagrams, design notes, maybe even
various partly-complete views of the source code, whatever it takes to
make components (and sets of components) understandable to "users".

As what the board's role should be here: encouragement, and actively
rallying to get things included. Also, I think that the primary focus
of financial support should be in this area.

Oh- and the dogma of backwards compatibility has done more unnecessary
damage than I can begin to tell, IMNSHO, so I'm all for
easing/releasing that restriction between major releases.

danil osipchuk

Re: election details PLEASE READ

In reply to this post by Göran Krampe

I would like to use traits (will start making an app with a complex domain model) but the tool support is not sufficient. I think it is not a fair claim that we've got Traits if we have no tools :(

regards,
Danil

Göran Krampe wrote

But... that doesn't mean that I advocate Squeak to stand still
language-wise. I love the fact we got Traits - even though it hasn't taken
off yet AFAIK - anyone using them btw?

regards, Göran

tblanchard

Re: election details PLEASE READ

In reply to this post by Andreas.Raab

We might start out by pointing out that the board does not set
technical policy. Tim has been quite vociferous about that and I agree.

I would say that my statement has been misconstrued.

The question was - What do you believe is the future of Smalltalk?
My answer was from a social/market/adoption perspective - you seem to
have taken it from a technical roadmap perspective.

What I meant when I said other languages seem to be approaching
Smalltalk is that they adopt more ST features all the time and the
prejudicial barriers are dropping. It is a fine time to win converts
and grow the user base. Consider how many people no longer think
garbage collection is an intolerable drain on performance. IOW, I
think the future of Smalltalk is bright and that it can gain mind/
marketshare as a language. So I see a future of growing user base
and rising visibility.

On Feb 21, 2007, at 1:33 AM, Andreas Raab wrote:

> Is a discussion of these issues even worthwhile in your understanding?

Yes. As with anything, there are things that drive me nuts about
Squeak that could be improved. I do understand that a better
packaging system is needed and am open to ideas about how best to
approach it. PackageInfo is pretty good, but we could do better.
I'd like to see a system that allowed package unloading as well.
Such a thing would undo package overrides.

> Should we actively pursue changes?

Yes - with some caution. I'm still waiting to see how Traits plays
out. Certainly other forks can be taken to try stuff.

> Do we need to protect the pureness of Smalltalk?

No, but we do need to protect the stability. My platform - if you
bothered to go read it, is about making Squeak useful for making
commercial quality things. http://wiki.squeak.org/squeak/5922

-Todd Blanchard

Adrian Lienhard

Re: election details PLEASE READ

In reply to this post by danil osipchuk

Have you tried TraitsOmniBrowser (http://www.squeaksource.com/
TraitsOmniBrowser.html)? Also, the OmniBrowser in the image has basic
support for Traits.
Of course the tools are not perfect. Instead of helping to improve
the situation people tend to complain. Unfortunately this will not
bring us forward. But hey, its not that important, is it?

Adrian

BTW, Monticello supports Traits too

On Feb 21, 2007, at 11:06 , danil osipchuk wrote:

>
> I would like to use traits (will start making an app with a complex
> domain
> model) but the tool support is not sufficient. I think it is not a
> fair
> claim that we've got Traits if we have no tools :(
>
> regards,
> Danil
>
>
> Göran Krampe wrote:
>>
>>
>> But... that doesn't mean that I advocate Squeak to stand still
>> language-wise. I love the fact we got Traits - even though it
>> hasn't taken
>> off yet AFAIK - anyone using them btw?
>>
>> regards, Göran
>>
>>
>
> --
> View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/Squeak-
> Foundation-Board-2007-Candidates-tf3253392.html#a9078181
> Sent from the Squeak - Dev mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
>
>

danil osipchuk

Re: Traits Browser

I tried TraitsOmniBrowser and as I recall I could not be productive with it. However it was half-year ago and I will take a fresh look.
Adrian, sorry if my post sounded like a harsh complain (it was a complain indeed), but my intent was not all that negative. I just wanted to bring up this topic again (in a bit provocative way, I admit) and also to stress two points:

1) There are people who care about traits and who appreciate any work in this direction.
2) Discussions popup from time to time, in which traits benefits are questioned basing on the fact that they are not used widely, although they are in the image for a quite a lot of time. I would like to counter this train of thought by telling that we can not say traits concept failed, because nobody used them.

So, please see my post in this context. I personally believe that traits are benefitial and I would like to apply them and to see if it is true.

Regarding the help, I would like to offer help in this case. In fact when I miss something, I'm trying to do it silently myself. But in this case I'm just not sure if I'm quilified - this is language infrastracture topic and I'm more 'userland' kind of guy. But if you need help - could you please describe what kind of help do you expect? If not me - probably other interested could jump in.

Regards,
Danil

Adrian Lienhard wrote

Have you tried TraitsOmniBrowser (http://www.squeaksource.com/
TraitsOmniBrowser.html)? Also, the OmniBrowser in the image has basic
support for Traits.
Of course the tools are not perfect. Instead of helping to improve
the situation people tend to complain. Unfortunately this will not
bring us forward. But hey, its not that important, is it?

Adrian

BTW, Monticello supports Traits too

Ramon Leon-5

RE: election details PLEASE READ

In reply to this post by Stéphane Rollandin

> I'm waiting for the tools to be ready...
>
> Stef

Same here.

Adrian Lienhard

Re: Traits Browser

In reply to this post by danil osipchuk

Hi Danil,

Thanks for making your points clear.
My "rant" was meant as a general remark -- to argue that without
initiative the tools will not get better over night...
Here some background: I put a fair amount of time into a smooth
integration of Traits into 3.9 (which I originally implemented for
3.7) and for example also made Monticello Traits-aware.
I also said that I cannot put work into the UI. Daniel, Andrew, and
Tom then worked on the TraitsOmniBrowser but somehow the effort got
stuck just a bit before being really usable out of the box. I think,
people that are interested in using Traits and need a more
sophisticated UI than the current OmniBrowser in 3.9 should join
forces and improve the TraitsOmniBrowser. (This browser btw. has some
other nice features unrelated to Traits as well.) I suggest to
contact one of the original authors. In general, the SqueakSource
repository has global write access so anybody can commit improvements.

Adrian

On Feb 21, 2007, at 13:04 , danil osipchuk wrote:

>
> I tried TraitsOmniBrowser and as I recall I could not be productive
> with it.
> However it was half-year ago and I will take a fresh look.
> Adrian, sorry if my post sounded like a harsh complain (it was a
> complain
> indeed), but my intent was not all that negative. I just wanted to
> bring up
> this topic again (in a bit provocative way, I admit) and also to
> stress two
> points:
>
> 1) There are people who care about traits and who appreciate any
> work in
> this direction.
> 2) Discussions popup from time to time, in which traits benefits are
> questioned basing on the fact that they are not used widely,
> although they
> are in the image for a quite a lot of time. I would like to counter
> this
> train of thought by telling that we can not say traits concept failed,
> because nobody used them.
>
> So, please see my post in this context. I personally believe that
> traits are
> benefitial and I would like to apply them and to see if it is true.
>
> Regarding the help, I would like to offer help in this case. In
> fact when I
> miss something, I'm trying to do it silently myself. But in this
> case I'm
> just not sure if I'm quilified - this is language infrastracture
> topic and
> I'm more 'userland' kind of guy. But if you need help - could you
> please
> describe what kind of help do you expect? If not me - probably other
> interested could jump in.
>
> Regards,
> Danil
>
>
>
>
> Adrian Lienhard wrote:
>>
>> Have you tried TraitsOmniBrowser (http://www.squeaksource.com/
>> TraitsOmniBrowser.html)? Also, the OmniBrowser in the image has basic
>> support for Traits.
>> Of course the tools are not perfect. Instead of helping to improve
>> the situation people tend to complain. Unfortunately this will not
>> bring us forward. But hey, its not that important, is it?
>>
>> Adrian
>>
>> BTW, Monticello supports Traits too
>>
>>
>>
>
> --
> View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/Squeak-
> Foundation-Board-2007-Candidates-tf3253392.html#a9079698
> Sent from the Squeak - Dev mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
>
>

Damien Cassou

Re: Traits Browser

2007/2/21, Adrian Lienhard <[hidden email]>:
> people that are interested in using Traits and need a more
> sophisticated UI than the current OmniBrowser in 3.9 should join
> forces and improve the TraitsOmniBrowser. (This browser btw. has some
> other nice features unrelated to Traits as well.)

I do not agree with you Adrian. I think it would be better to extract
what makes TraitsOmniBrowser a cool browser for traits and implement
those features into OmniBrowser itself. I don't think having one
browser per feature is something we want. I would prefer one browser
for everything (traits, dynamic protocols, code coverage...).
Moreover, I don't see the point of having a browser not trait aware,
this would be stupid in a 3.9 image.

So please do not put more work on the TraitsOmniBrowser anymore.
Instead, enhance OmniBrowser with TraitsOmniBrowser features.

I volunteer to help because I like improving tool and I'm working with traits.

--
Damien Cassou

Roel Wuyts

Re: election details PLEASE READ

In reply to this post by Andreas.Raab

I drink do that. Cheers Andreas.

It's fun that especially a very open and reflective language like
Smalltalk actually is not extended very much (or only within small
research projects not taken up by the community). Where are the macro
systems ? Variable length argument lists ? Nifty versioning and
packaging systems ? Monads ? Usable typing systems ? etc. etc.

On 21 Feb 2007, at 21 February/07:59, Andreas Raab wrote:

>>> 4) What do you believe is the future of Smalltalk?
>> I believe every other language is asymptotically approaching
>> Smalltalk.
>
> Hm. Can't really let this statement stand by itself. While I think
> (hope) it isn't meant that way I find ignorance one of the hardest
> things to tolerate. Saying that "every other language is
> asymptotically approaching Smalltalk" sounds too much like "and
> therefore we can safely ignore them" to my mind. My wish for people
> representing Squeak (not only, but particularly those) would be to
> be open and engaging in discussion about the strengths and
> weaknesses of each system and language. This means acknowledging
> that other languages (including Java) have their strengths (yes,
> including Java) and that a discussion (regardless of its outcome)
> about what parts may be worthwhile to adopt in the context of
> Squeak is desirable and should be held with an open mind towards
> improving both language and system.
>
> Personally, I think Python is a good example in this regard. There
> are a lot of new features proposed every time and they are often
> weighed based on how "Pythonic" they feel (which is a beautifully
> underspecified term to keep the discussion open and discuss how a
> feature relates in the context of other language features). And
> while I will admit that language changes can go overboard (recently
> I discovered "whitespaceless" Python which is about as *disgusting*
> a language abuse as they get) a lot of good features get integrated
> in Python by looking at and learning from other languages and systems.
>
> In any case, I think it is important for people representing Squeak
> to stay open to improvements *to the language* and not just to
> claim that "eventually, every other language will get there so
> really there will never, ever be anything to learn here".
>
> Cheers,
> - Andreas
>

Roel Wuyts

Re: election details PLEASE READ

In reply to this post by Stéphane Rollandin

And I think that there is at least somebody defining the English
language, no ? Really ?! I mean, we even have that for Dutch...

On 21 Feb 2007, at 21 February/10:04, Stéphane Rollandin wrote:

> Alan Lovejoy wrote:
>> The French have L'Academie Francaise--and woe unto those it deems
>> to be
>> sullying French with foreignisms.
>
> yes but keep in mind that about nobody cares about what the old
> timers in the Académie Française may think...
>
>
> Stef
>

timrowledge

Re: election details PLEASE READ

On 21-Feb-07, at 1:55 PM, Roel Wuyts wrote:

> And I think that there is at least somebody defining the English
> language, no ? Really ?!
Nope. The Oxford English Dictionary is a *descriptive* authority, not
a *prescriptive* one. We steal from everyone and everywhen; which is
why we rule the universe. <whisperings offstage> Ah; sorry, wrong
date. "why we *will* rule the universe!"

tim
--
tim Rowledge; [hidden email]; http://www.rowledge.org/tim
Strange OpCodes: RG: Read inter-record Gap

Roel Wuyts

Re: election details PLEASE READ

In reply to this post by tblanchard

Not that all of these languages are object-oriented programming
languages. Several features found in functional, logic or constraint
languages might be interested to integrate. Note the (really
excellent) paper of Philippe Mougin and Stephane Ducasse, that
integrated APL-like constructs with Smalltalk collections.

OOPAL: Integrating Array Programming in Object-Oriented Programming ,
Philippe Mougin, Stéphane Ducasse. OOPSLA 2003 (18th Annual ACM
SIGPLAN Conference on Object-Oriented Programming, Systems,
Languages, and Applications). Technical Paper, October 2003, Anaheim,
USA.

On 21 Feb 2007, at 21 February/09:55, Todd Blanchard wrote:

>
> On Feb 21, 2007, at 12:40 AM, Andreas Raab wrote:
>> I must admit I'm not particularly impressed with that overall
>> assessment.
>
> Then don't vote for me. Sheesh.
>
> Given that AFAICS you've spent the better part of your career
> hacking Smalltalk rather than working in the mudpits, I'm not
> giving your view from a distance a lot of weight.
>
> I have years of full time development in these languages - C++
> expert, Java expert, Objective C expert. Smalltalk - I'm just
> pretty good.
>
> Namespaces I've seen the effect of in C++, Java and VW. I think
> they are a bigger PITA than they are worth. Honestly, I prefer
> sticking two letter prefixes in front of stuff.
>
> Modules are so overloaded you'll have to define what you mean.
>
> Interfaces - not a fan of the hardwired interface ala Java. I do
> like informal protocols as implemented in ObjectiveC.
> Specifically, I like that I can define a protocol, and then ask an
> object if it conforms to the protocol without having to go back and
> say "this object will implement this protocol". Not that explicit
> protocols isn't occasionally useful, but I think the current
> subclassResponsibility mechanism gets the same point across.
>

Roel Wuyts

Re: election details PLEASE READ

In reply to this post by Cees De Groot

Yes and no.

I was at a Prolog conference once, and they were saying the exact
same thing about Prolog, which made me laugh my head of (having heard
this so many times at Smalltalk conferences). Lisp people also seem
to think that Lisp is perfect...

Broadening this a bit: these three language families (Logic
programming, functional programming and (pure) object-oriented
programming are all considered 5th generation languages. I often
wonder why none of these well-designed, clean languages were never
really popular. I actually believe that this is one of the deep,
underlying reasons: people that embrace this language and get it are
so hooked that they are absorbed and never get out again. This is
what Andreas is pointing to.

On 21 Feb 2007, at 21 February/10:25, Cees de Groot wrote:

> On 2/21/07, Göran Krampe <[hidden email]> wrote:
>> Sidenote: I have toyed with an idea that a Module would simply
>> consist of
>> a serialized object chunk (normally a Set of classes a la an mcz
>> snapshot)
>> that has required inputs in the form of a list of globals and offered
>> outputs in the form of a list of globals.
>
> Would be neat.
>
> On stealing/enhancing: Aspect/S, SmallInterfaces, Traits, Squeak/E,
> ... - there's a lot already. However, contrary to mainstream
> languages, we're at such a high level that it is *hard* to adopt
> enhancements that really make the language better...
>

Roel Wuyts

Re: election details PLEASE READ

In reply to this post by timrowledge

Wauw, you learn something new every day. Amazing. Anarchy rules :-)
Turns out quite ok :-)

On 21 Feb 2007, at 21 February/23:03, tim Rowledge wrote:

>
> On 21-Feb-07, at 1:55 PM, Roel Wuyts wrote:
>
>> And I think that there is at least somebody defining the English
>> language, no ? Really ?!
> Nope. The Oxford English Dictionary is a *descriptive* authority,
> not a *prescriptive* one. We steal from everyone and everywhen;
> which is why we rule the universe. <whisperings offstage> Ah;
> sorry, wrong date. "why we *will* rule the universe!"
>
>
> tim
> --
> tim Rowledge; [hidden email]; http://www.rowledge.org/tim
> Strange OpCodes: RG: Read inter-record Gap
>
>
>

Nicolas Cellier-3

Re: election details PLEASE READ

Roel Wuyts a écrit :

> Wauw, you learn something new every day. Amazing. Anarchy rules :-)
> Turns out quite ok :-)
>
> On 21 Feb 2007, at 21 February/23:03, tim Rowledge wrote:
>
>>
>> On 21-Feb-07, at 1:55 PM, Roel Wuyts wrote:
>>
>>> And I think that there is at least somebody defining the English
>>> language, no ? Really ?!
>> Nope. The Oxford English Dictionary is a *descriptive* authority, not
>> a *prescriptive* one. We steal from everyone and everywhen; which is
>> why we rule the universe. <whisperings offstage> Ah; sorry, wrong
>> date. "why we *will* rule the universe!"
>>
>>
>> tim
>> --
>> tim Rowledge; [hidden email]; http://www.rowledge.org/tim
>> Strange OpCodes: RG: Read inter-record Gap
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>

From now on, i won't be ashame of my stupids english faults, and won't
bother to correct'em.
Hey my teachers didn't tell me i could consider theses as neologism
stolen directly from my lazy mind!

Nicolas

Ken Causey-3

Re: election details PLEASE READ

In reply to this post by Roel Wuyts

_The Meaning of Everything_ by Simon Winchester is a very interesting
read (actually I listened to it recently while doing some renovation
work) and this subject was an important one early in the history of the
OED and even earlier English dictonaries (to be descriptive and not
prescriptive).

Ken

On Wed, 2007-02-21 at 23:12 +0100, Roel Wuyts wrote:

> Wauw, you learn something new every day. Amazing. Anarchy rules :-)
> Turns out quite ok :-)
>
> On 21 Feb 2007, at 21 February/23:03, tim Rowledge wrote:
>
> >
> > On 21-Feb-07, at 1:55 PM, Roel Wuyts wrote:
> >
> >> And I think that there is at least somebody defining the English
> >> language, no ? Really ?!
> > Nope. The Oxford English Dictionary is a *descriptive* authority,
> > not a *prescriptive* one. We steal from everyone and everywhen;
> > which is why we rule the universe. <whisperings offstage> Ah;
> > sorry, wrong date. "why we *will* rule the universe!"
> >
> >
> > tim
> > --
> > tim Rowledge; [hidden email]; http://www.rowledge.org/tim
> > Strange OpCodes: RG: Read inter-record Gap

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Blake-5

Re: election details PLEASE READ

In reply to this post by Adrian Lienhard

On Wed, 21 Feb 2007 03:10:16 -0800, Adrian Lienhard <[hidden email]>
wrote:

> Of course the tools are not perfect. Instead of helping to improve the
> situation people tend to complain. Unfortunately this will not bring us
> forward. But hey, its not that important, is it?

It's challenging to both work with traits for the first time AND figure
out how to improve the tools for working with traits. The plus side of
Squeak is that it is, at least, relatively easy to make (at least rough
drafts of) tools.

1234567

Squeak Foundation Board 2007 Candidates

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