Squeak from a newcomer's perspective

> -----Mensaje original-----
> De: [hidden email]
> [mailto:[hidden email]] En
> nombre de Jon Hylands
> Enviado el: Miércoles, 31 de Octubre de 2007 09:36
> Para: [hidden email]
> Asunto: Squeak from a newcomer's perspective
>
>
> One of the guys on a robotics list I am on was interested in
> using Squeak for his robot after I showed him what I had done
> with my RoboMagellan
> controller:
>
> http://www.huv.com/roboMagellan/MissionEditor.jpg
>
> He's been playing with Squeak for a week or so, and he posted
> this reply to someone who was asking him why Squeak (and I'm
> reposting it here with
> permission):
>
> ==========================
> "Robert F. Scheer" <[hidden email]>
>
> > Hello,
> >
> > tell me more about squeak please...
>
> First, let me make it clear I am not yet advocating Squeak.  
> I'm into it now for almost a week.  I'm finding it very fun
> and it looks like it has a big chance of being my robot
> programming environment for the next 20 years.  But it's
> possible that could change, obviously.
>
> Squeak is an open source evolution of Smalltalk-80.  I think
> it doesn't help to describe it as 100% object oriented and so
> forth.  What really attracts me is how you can build up
> applications from your own and others' collections of stuff
> written for other projects often in unrelated areas.  The
> unique integrated design environment is fun and powerful.  
> Apparently it is common to write code by first specifying
> verification procedures and then working backward.  It is
> often common to write code in the integrated debugger.  The
> code is compiled as you go and it is always live.  When you
> enter a line or a class, the IDE won't allow grammar errors
> or references to missing variables and so forth.  You spend
> no time on type declarations although types are quite rigid,
> but you don't have issues of different modules using common
> headers and cr.p like that.  Garbage collection is totally
> built in and needs no programmer attention.
>
> A squeak program (image) will run under all *nix's, Windows,
> Mac and on any machine that hosts those so you can write it
> on your desktop, test various stuff there and then file it
> out to your robot for ground testing.  Large robot control
> images can be adapted over time to different projects without
> rewriting huge portions of code.  The same image could be
> extended over many years to control new robot projects while
> still being backward compatible to older ones.  This way if
> you develop a brand new feature it might be available to an
> older robot with no further effort.  If early bots use simple
> subsumption architecture, that code can remain available
> while you add higher level techniques so it's easy to imagine
> testing a brand new robot first with the most basic
> subsumption behaviors and then adding the newer ones layer by
> layer as you test.
>
> Oh, the Squeak community on the web is really well organized
> and there's a huge degree of sharing.  Code is much easier
> than other languages to share.  I believe that even though
> not that many people seem to use it in my immediate circle
> (read zero), and I doubt a major fraction of the world's
> programmers use it, they make progress pretty quickly due to
> the community pool of knowledge.
>
> I may be misusing some concepts but I hope you get the idea.  
> I hope I still agree with this description a year from now.
>
> The place to start is a fantastic (free) ebook at this site (Squeak by
> Example):
>
> http://www.iam.unibe.ch/%7Escg/SBE/
>
> I found that Ubuntu made it easy/instant to load version 3.9
> sources from repository.
>
> There are some downsides to Squeak of course.  Images tend to
> be much larger, meaning multi-MB, than programs in other
> languages and they're not as fast either but that's not
> something I'm qualified to amplify on atm.  Jon Hylands runs
> Squeak on Gumstix miniature computers so that tells you that
> a fast ARM processor is probably the minimal hardware
> environment.  You will not be running Squeak on a PIC or AVR
> or Propeller though.
>
> I am not sure but doubt you could write a vision processor in
> Squeak with reasonable performance for example.  It is most
> likely you need primitives written in a lower level language
> that do the grunt work.  
> But I wouldn't be surprised to discover that those are  
> easily loaded from the web and require no effort on your part
> other than understanding what they are in the first place.
>
> > what widgets or GUI tools have found for it that correspond to
> > robotics type work for GUI design... knobs, meters, and such???
> >
> > inquiring minds want more info...pretty please...
>
> I honestly haven't looked for widgets yet.  I see huge lists
> of all types of Squeak code for this and that on line ready
> to pull into your application.  Also, I'm still hazy on what
> the web pages actually are that the robot will serve to the
> remote monitor screen and control panel.  Just not there yet.
>  I did notice that Jon Hylands, who has been a great mentor
> btw (sorry Jon to let that slip) is thinking that George's
> point about remote browser based gui's is a good idea so
> he'll probably head in that direction.
>
> In conclusion, after one week of Squeak, I'd say it's a
> mind-warp.  It's not a linear way of thinking.  It requires a
> disciplined journey to a different reality.  One of the first
> programming exercises is to go through the steps to make a
> little game.  Going through the motions makes a lot of sense
> and you're done in about 15 minutes.  You realize to be able
> to think along the lines of the original designer would
> require a different you.
>
> ==========================
>
> Later,
> Jon
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------
>    Jon Hylands      [hidden email]      http://www.huv.com/jon
>
>   Project: Micro Raptor (Small Biped Velociraptor Robot)
>            http://www.huv.com/blog
>

>
> On Oct 31, 2007, at 5:35 AM, a friend of Jon Hylands wrote:
>
>> Oh, the Squeak community on the web is really well organized and there's
>> a huge degree of sharing.  Code is much easier than other languages to
>> share.  I believe that even though not that many people seem to use it
>> in my immediate circle (read zero), and I doubt a major fraction of the
>> world's programmers use it, they make progress pretty quickly due to the
>> community pool of knowledge.
>
> His first impression of the community is that we're well-organized?
> Interesting.
>
> Colin
>
>
>

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [hidden email] [mailto:squeak-dev-
> [hidden email]] On Behalf Of Jon Hylands
> Sent: Wednesday, October 31, 2007 3:22 PM
> To: The general-purpose Squeak developers list
> Subject: Re: Squeak from a newcomer's perspective
>
> On Wed, 31 Oct 2007 12:14:14 -0700, "Robert F. Scheer"
> <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
> > Well, I'm the author of that note Jon posted and I obviously wrote it
> > before joining this mailing list:)
>
> Hi Robert, and welcome the the Squeak mailing list...
>
> Later,
> Jon
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------
>    Jon Hylands      [hidden email]      http://www.huv.com/jon
>
>   Project: Micro Raptor (Small Biped Velociraptor Robot)
>            http://www.huv.com/blog

> Jon Hylands a écrit :
>> One of the guys on a robotics list I am on was interested in using
>> Squeak
>> for his robot after I showed him what I had done with my RoboMagellan
>> controller:
>>
>> http://www.huv.com/roboMagellan/MissionEditor.jpg
>>
>> He's been playing with Squeak for a week or so, and he posted this
>> reply to
>> someone who was asking him why Squeak (and I'm reposting it here with
>> permission):
>
>
> Thank you Jon for the report.
> I think we are now many people who are using Squeak for robotic
> applications : me and Noury Bouraqadi in France, Joaquin Sitte in
> Australia, some people in Japan.
>
> Some applications :
> - Frobs, a robotic simulator : http://www.squeaksource.com/FrobS.html
> - SqueakBot :
> - WifiBot, a framework to control Wifi-bots :
> http://www.squeaksource.com/WifiBot.html
> - DEFART : http://www.itolab.com/en/
>
> Maybe we could share experiences and code. I dunno what is the better
> way ? A mailing list maybe ?
>
> Best regards,
>
> -- Serge Stinckwich
> http://doesnotunderstand.free.fr/
>
>
>
>