Survey: what do you do with Squeak, what do you *want* to do?
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Survey: what do you do with Squeak, what do you *want* to do?
 
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At the latest board meeting we got to discussing the relative quietness of the squeak list(s) recently. We were wondering what you folks out there are doing with Squeak, what you'd like to be able to use it for, the things that you think would be important to improve it for wider use and so on.
Please, whether you're a frequent user or an occasional look-at-the-list type, take a moment to let us know your opinions. What do you use Squeak for? If you don't use Squeak, why not? If you used Squeak in the past and don't now, what pulled you away? What does Squeak lack that you think might make you use it for 'regular' development? What things are too hard or annoying to do? What would you like to be able to use Squeak for? tim -- tim Rowledge; [hidden email]; http://www.rowledge.org/tim C for sinking, java for drinking, Smalltalk for thinking |
Re: Survey: what do you do with Squeak, what do you *want* to do?
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timrowledge wrote
> What do you use Squeak for? Inspiration. I have a lot of old code and images floating around (e.g. Mathmorphs, Sophie, the cat with the eyes that follow the mouse) that I think are absolutely wonderful and most have never been duplicated. timrowledge wrote > If you used Squeak in the past and don't now, what pulled you away? For years, I had one foot on two different sleds (Squeak and Pharo), at times pulling in different directions. I was spending a large chunk of my time keeping all my projects compatible with both and eventually had to make a choice. At that time, IIRC my choice was mostly based on the fact that it seemed I could more easily get enhancements and cleanups integrated into Pharo. Also the IDE tools I wanted to use seemed better supported there. As the tools diverged more, I became locked in because I tend to heavily customize my IDE. This has only increased; lately, I consider GT and the other things Moose brings (e.g. Roassal) to be essential things I wouldn't want to live without. I still follow the Squeak MLs religiously and try to help in small ways like answering questions. timrowledge wrote > What would you like to be able to use Squeak for? My dream for a long time was for Squeak and Pharo to reunite, with Pharo as a lean, mean base system, and Squeak implementing/porting all the amazing projects on top, like some of the ones I listed above. I realize that this is extremely unlikely especially for political reasons, but since you asked! ;-) ----- Cheers, Sean -- Sent from: http://forum.world.st/Squeak-Dev-f45488.html
Cheers,
Sean |
Re: Survey: what do you do with Squeak, what do you *want* to do?
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In reply to this post by timrowledge
> What do you use Squeak for?
I use it for everything. I belong to the generation that grew up with personal computing, and I believe Squeak is the pinnacle of personal computing. It is fun, powerful, beautiful, intelligent. Morphic provides a unique level of interactivity with graphical representations. I have been working with Squeak for the last 15 years or so. I developed (and am still improving daily) a system for music composition, http://www.zogotounga.net/comp/squeak/sqgeo.htm .. and used it to write all pieces post-2003 in http://stephanerollandin.bandcamp.com/ I also made a game, http://www.zogotounga.net/comp/saucers.htm .. a package for functional programming, http://www.zogotounga.net/comp/squeak/functionaltalk.htm .. and a Lisp/Scheme implementation, http://www.zogotounga.net/comp/squeak/lispkit.htm > What does Squeak lack? First of all, whatever Squeak lacks should not overshadow what Squeak has. It is a mature system IMO. It is paramount not to improve it just for the sake of improving it, at the risk of killing some of its current balance between "serious" and "fun" (or between "corporate" and "personal' if you wish) system. Also, and somewhat related, not many people actually grok what makes Squeak and Morphic awesome. And not many people routinely uses features that are unique to Squeak, which may put them into danger. For example, I regularly see people complaining that Morphic is a mess, undocumented, ugly, unusable, etc. While they may have a point (notably about documentation, and there are indeed messy parts), I think I can safely say that nobody has used Morphic as much as I have for muO, and it is just amazing. For all its wards, it is still a unique and deeply satisfying way to deal with graphical interfaces. It is a jewel. With that said, what Squeak lacks IMO is, off the top of my head: - a good handling of fonts and text coding systems (I cannot write my name in a string, as the accented é will get converted upon file-out, I also did not find a way to work with music fonts). - facilities for touch screen devices, and all events generated by physical gestures on a phone (tilt, etc.) - easy HTML/Javascript integration. It would be great if it was straightforward to embed Squeak images in a web page (I know some impressive work is already being done in that area, it is just not ready yet) > What things are too hard or annoying to do? A behavior bugs me: when moving a Squeak image window in Windows, all processes pause, including MIDI out. Not too good for games or live music. > What would you like to be able to use Squeak for? I would like to keep using it for music and games, and for musical games. Stef |
Survey: what do you do with Squeak, what do you *want* to do?
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In reply to this post by timrowledge
Hi Tim,
On Wed, 21 Feb 2018 17:36:01 -0800, tim Rowledge <[hidden email]> wrote: >At the latest board meeting we got to discussing the relative quietness of the squeak list(s) recently. We were wondering what you folks out there are doing with Squeak, what you'd like to be able to use it for, the things that you think would be important to improve it for wider use and so on. >Please, whether you're a frequent user or an occasional look-at-the-list type, take a moment to let us know your opinions. >What do you use Squeak for? I use Squeak for fun. I also use Squeak when I want to write a program to run on a Raspberry Pi. One runs headless and uses Seaside to allow control of the Raspberry GPIO pins from a web browser on a PC or phone. Another that I am currently working on displays a clock on a monitor (and screen you can use on a Raspberry). It also uses Seaside to allow web access to the programs settings. The clock displays a picture as the clock face and the web access allows you to changes many options from a browser. >If you don't use Squeak, why not? >If you used Squeak in the past and don't now, what pulled you away? >What does Squeak lack that you think might make you use it for 'regular' development? I'm too use to VA Smalltalk to change. But if VA Smalltalk can't run on a platform, I turn to Squeak. >What things are too hard or annoying to do? It would be nice to know what projects (I'm not sure that is the correct term) are needed in an image and what isn't for a given program. It would be nice to be able to reduce the size of an image. The images I put on the Raspberry run over 65MB, headless or not. My headless VA Smalltalk images run under 3MB and GUI images are usually under 6MB. This obviously isn't a deal breaker but it would be nice. >What would you like to be able to use Squeak for? >tim Thanks for asking. Lou -- Louis LaBrunda Keystone Software Corp. SkypeMe callto://PhotonDemon |
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In reply to this post by timrowledge
HI.
On Wed, Feb 21, 2018 at 5:36 PM, tim Rowledge <[hidden email]> wrote: At the latest board meeting we got to discussing the relative quietness of the squeak list(s) recently. We were wondering what you folks out there are doing with Squeak, what you'd like to be able to use it for, the things that you think would be important to improve it for wider use and so on. I have it running on a computer near me almost all of the time. At work, I use it to monitor our applications/machines, to analyze data, to diagram what is going on. Oh, and to prototype all sorts of new technologies. And finally as a scratch pad/assitent to help me think. When I can (and not at work), I often use it for play - occassionaly to build something fun (game-wise), although they never make it to a level to share like Stephane; more often to try new and odd things found in Squeak or elsewhere. If you don't use Squeak, why not? If you used Squeak in the past and don't now, what pulled you away? -N/A
The biggest thing lately I'd like to be able to do is pull some of the development environment in from Pharo-Moose. I saw the demo given by Alexandre end of last year, and that environment is very, very nice. I just don't want to give up my very long living images - I have one going to back to 2.4 that I still ocassionally break out for certain purposes. -cbc |
Re: Survey: what do you do with Squeak, what do you *want* to do?
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In reply to this post by timrowledge
See answers within:
> On Feb 21, 2018, at 18:36, tim Rowledge <[hidden email]> wrote: > > At the latest board meeting we got to discussing the relative quietness of the squeak list(s) recently. We were wondering what you folks out there are doing with Squeak, what you'd like to be able to use it for, the things that you think would be important to improve it for wider use and so on. > > Please, whether you're a frequent user or an occasional look-at-the-list type, take a moment to let us know your opinions. > > What do you use Squeak for? Right now not using very much, just updating and trying a few things out. > If you don't use Squeak, why not? Still my favourite, not working on any particular project now. > If you used Squeak in the past and don't now, what pulled you away? Some years ago (too many) now at work I started to use Squeak as the basis of a scriptable test framework for end to end cycle testing, injecting known signals into a gas well flow measurement instrument that would report to a server via cell or satellite. Idea was to be able to monitor various pertinent data points in the whole system beginning to end making sure that the integrity of the information remained correct throughout. One part of the test suite, was connected to and monitored a single debug serial port on the instrument that was used to turn on and off software test points within the instrument that were enabled and disabled via commands into the port. Also, known measurement data was injected for certain tests. Outgoing streams of data that were enabled and coming from the instrument, were annotated as to which stream or test point they belonged to, and the data was subsequently separated and written to appropriate Squeak windows per stream or combination of streams as needed. The project got cancelled before full realization due to company financial constraints and layoffs. A certain amount of resistance to Smalltalk and Squeak was experienced since the shop was Windows only. > What does Squeak lack that you think might make you use it for 'regular' development? At the time of the test framework development, it was too easy to overwhelm the serial communications and lose data, perhaps I was doing something wrong. Work remained to be done to ensure reliability of the incoming data stream. > What things are too hard or annoying to do? When a newcomer to Squeak, I learned about entering self halt at various places while learning and following code execution. I found that very intimidating, being afraid of modifying critical Squeak code and not being able to find or undo the modifications later. I’m sure many newcomers feel this way. Some easy way to remove or disable all such debug points from one place might be good. I would like to see progress made with Craig Latta’s modularity work. One main thing that I feel could use significant improvement now is SqueakMap. For some reason developers don’t seem to find SqueakMap compelling enough to register their software even though SqueakMap has the potential and I feel could/should be the primary go-to place for Squeak software and documentation. We might be able to make registration on SqueakMap easier to understand and accomplish, and more automatic. Another item, I would like to see Edgar’s FunSqueak live long and prosper. I think keeping a lot of the old unique projects alive and loadable in latest Squeaks is a good thing, also it is good to see that eToys remains active in Squeak. SqueakMap would be ideal help for everything loadable and unloadable. Another: initial look and feel, e.g. last time I looked, Cuis is much nicer looking at the start. > What would you like to be able to use Squeak for? I intend to use Squeak on Raspberry Pi when it arrives, where the heck is that order anyway? Would like to find time for a few other projects as well e.g. home accounting that I haven’t gotten to yet, geodesic design, Grafcet… Thanks a lot for everyone’s continuing work on Squeak. Ken G. Brown > tim > -- > tim Rowledge; [hidden email]; http://www.rowledge.org/tim > C for sinking, java for drinking, Smalltalk for thinking > > > |
Re: Survey: what do you do with Squeak, what do you *want* to do?
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In reply to this post by timrowledge
Hi all,
Am 22.02.2018 um 02:36 schrieb tim Rowledge > What do you use Squeak for? Neural networks, genetic algorithms, optimizations, simulations. Privately simulate/optimize stuff in squeak and then use the gained knowledge or results in the job :-) Generally wonderful tool to explore ideas. Projects in projects for documentation/idea sketching. Sometimes to annoy my fellow colleagues to show how easy things could be if they weren't forced to use mainstream tools/languages :-) Just recently by showing off Tony's Maps video. Analyzing Megabytes of badly formatted ASCII test protocols (automated tests) to evaluate production quality. Analyzing test reports written in baaaad German to find quality problems in production. Run an aidaweb webapp developed in 3.8, nowadays on 4.3. 24/7 image processing on a RasPi (detecting cats in the garden :-) Time keeping and billing hours spent on projects. Audio analysis and measurements (FFT) Don't get me wrong, I'm an Engineer, not a programmer, programming is one tool in my toolbox. And it's a wonderful tool! > If you don't use Squeak, why not? At work. Best I get to use is Python, goes steeply down from there. Luckily I rarely write software on the job. > If you used Squeak in the past and don't now, what pulled you away? N/A > > What does Squeak lack that you think might make you use it for 'regular' development? 'Shiny' UI. Unusable but shiny. Glad we don't have that. Not by M$. Not playing nice with the rest of the world, lack of ecosystem. Comparison here is Python. This is my only serious complaint. Mentoring. It has a steep learning curve and I'm sure mentoring would help. > What things are too hard or annoying to do? N/A because the things I embark on seem to be well covered. May change when I retire and get more time to Squeak. Real time audio stuff, more audio formats (32 bit float wav) 64 bit Float Array (may even work in 64 bit images) FloatArray protocol too small. > What would you like to be able to use Squeak for? Tons if I had more time/energy. > > tim Thanks for asking! Please note that the main problem is that I don't attack the things I want/dislike. Cheers, Herbert > -- > tim Rowledge; [hidden email]; http://www.rowledge.org/tim > C for sinking, java for drinking, Smalltalk for thinking > > > |
Re: Survey: what do you do with Squeak, what do you *want* to do?
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2018-02-22 22:23 GMT+01:00 Herbert König <[hidden email]>:
> Please note that the main problem is that I don't attack the things I > want/dislike. Same here I guess. 2018-02-22 2:36 GMT+01:00 tim Rowledge <[hidden email]>: > > What do you use Squeak for? > If you don't use Squeak, why not? No Squeak software to be shipped at work. ;-) At least I have something in VA Smalltalk to work on. But I miss Morphic halos and keyboard shortcuts there. > If you used Squeak in the past and don't now, what pulled you away? > What does Squeak lack that you think might make you use it for 'regular' development? Better integration with the OS, in my case Windows (e.g., more flexible drag-n-drop into the image, supporting more objects than just files and more options to handle the objects being dropped in the image; more features in OSProcess for Windows; details like registry editing), and/or tools that help to create bindings to APIs and external libraries, so I would not have to do all the FFI stuff myself. In the end, this is just the ecosystem argument restated from a different angle. It would be nice if Squeak were more of a team player instead of 'only' being a superior environment inside of a nutshell. For current business matters, an official VM for AIX would be required, or more (willing) Smalltalkers being around for staffing. ;-) > What things are too hard or annoying to do? > What would you like to be able to use Squeak for? All kinds of automation stuff where a simple shell script or batch file seems inadequate. Creating little (graphical) tools that make life (and special work tasks) easier. But being aware of the other posts in this thread, I guess this just degenerates to me affirming Herbert in the first paragraph. |
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In reply to this post by timrowledge
On Thu, Feb 22, 2018 at 3:36 PM, tim Rowledge <[hidden email]> wrote: jrmAt the latest board meeting we got to discussing the relative quietness of the squeak list(s) recently. We were wondering what you folks out there are doing with Squeak, what you'd like to be able to use it for, the things that you think would be important to improve it for wider use and so on. Thank your for asking! I am a hobby programmer who uses Squeak to develop applications that interest me. I am currently enhancing my audio stream recording application (using an external program) that I would like to run cross platform. I actively work on Mac and Windows and dabble with Pi and Android. I am researching requirements for an application to to extract, display, and manipulate geo data from USGS geopdf files. I am also thinking about building a Pi app that I can use to detect Scorpions around my house. If you don't use Squeak, why not? I don't know that Squeak is lacking as much as I am and I don't think of Squeak as a 'regular' development environment. Squeak is a gateway into a different way of thinking about and doing development. When I see things like Alice and her decendents, Nebraska, Caffeine, SqueakJS, or TiledMaps, etc, it thrills me. Hey talented people can bootstrap Squeak to new chip sets or spit out Slang for embedd applications (IOT anyone?) If Squeak lacks anything, it is a mechanism to grow our base What things are too hard or annoying to do? 1. Writing a simple GUI application. The Squeak/Pharo landscape is littered with many different GUI development experiments, none of which have garnered global mind share (or sufficient documentation ;-), but this is the nature of of our evolving environment. When I ask questions on the list, I do get helpful answers. All GUI frameworks have limitations 2. Understanding the architecture of Morphic. I know I am not alone in this. 3. Understanding overloaded classes. E.g. StringValue seem to be heavily biased towards ToolBuilder. It has lots of methods which look like they belong in a package category, the ones with leading *, not in the base class categories, no*. If I am just interested in a simple StringValue object what methods are essential. Or maybe I should only use ValueHolder and do the heavy lifting in my classes. What would you like to be able to use Squeak for? Squeak seems quite capable of enabling me to reach my goals.
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Re: Survey: what do you do with Squeak, what do you *want* to do?
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In reply to this post by timrowledge
What do you use Squeak for? Unfortunately, I mostly just follow the list. My experience is limited to elementary experiments: just defining some classes, and using them in a workspace, using the transcript to inspect the results. If you don't use Squeak, why not? I just don't seem to get it. I think I master the building blocks, I get what is in the SBE book, but somehow, I don't see how to tie the pieces together into something that looks like a regular application. If you used Squeak in the past and don't now, what pulled you away? To be honest, it's more a mystery what keeps pulling me towards Squeak, given my poor results until now. What does Squeak lack that you think might make you use it for 'regular' development? I am not in a position to answer this question. What things are too hard or annoying to do? Everything is hard, but not annoying. I probably need to get more general knowledge of the 'Object Oriented' paradigm, and some UI design skills. A 30+ year career in mainframe development left me a very procedural guy, and a UI for me has 30 lines with 132 colums each. What would you like to be able to use Squeak for? What got me interested was reading about Squeaknos, turtles all the way down, at one of those moments I was struggling once more with a linux upgrade that destroyed the GNUstep installation I had managed to install. Now I see this is miles beyond my reach, but that was the spark. Currently, I'm trying to build an intelligent doorbell, with Squeak and a Raspberry Pi that was laying around here. Now if only it would just ring outside the simulation. Did I mention my knowledge of electronics is far below average..... I don't know if this is of much use to you, but since you asked....
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Survey: what do you do with Squeak, what do you *want* to do?
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In reply to this post by timrowledge
On Thu, Feb 22, 2018 at 3:36 PM, tim Rowledge <[hidden email]> wrote: At the latest board meeting we got to discussing the relative quietness of the squeak list(s) recently. We were wondering what you folks out there are doing with Squeak, what you'd like to be able to use it for, the things that you think would be important to improve it for wider use and so on. |
Re: Survey: what do you do with Squeak, what do you *want* to do?
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Thanks for all the fascinating responses so far - please keep them coming! I need to be able to draw some conclusions...
tim -- tim Rowledge; [hidden email]; http://www.rowledge.org/tim I majored in Art and Logic. Now I draw my own conclusions |
Re: Survey: what do you do with Squeak, what do you *want* to do?
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tim Rowledge <[hidden email]> wrote:
> Thanks for all the fascinating responses so far - please keep them > coming! I need to be able to draw some conclusions... The first time I saw Squeak was when I downloaded it on my Macintosh LC475. With no earlier experience in Smalltalk I found it impossible to create classes and methods. I few years later I started using Squeak with Seaside after Marcus Denker presented it on the CCC congress in Berlin in 2007. It finally presented me with the abstractions I had been missing for reasonable web development. With Diego Lont we build an application for a startup that we then deployed on Glass. With Seaside and Moose moving their primary development to Pharo that became my main platform. I often look back and compare how things are between Pharo and Squeak to see what got lost in translation and find good examples. Stephan Eggermont |
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In reply to this post by timrowledge
StackExchange is my goto for Squeak questions. The mailing lists cannot compare. Also, the last several years have been very tough economically. Just scratching to survive, no time to code. Currently coding an application in Seaside. For wider use, you need mindshare, that means the CLI centric Linux crowd and incorporate the language/cogvm into everyday Linux development models . However, the GUI is essential for other dev types; I am not knocking the GUI, just recognizing need for different users. Squeak is a blast, though. It is the first (besides SQL) non-algol language I have used and I am never looking back. I hope, as time frees up, to work on the REPL and decoupling the Squeak from Morphic/MVC . Would love to create an X Desktop with it. Good luck.
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Re: Survey: what do you do with Squeak, what do you *want* to do?
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In reply to this post by timrowledge
I really love the answers so far! :)
>At the latest board meeting we got to discussing the relative quietness of the squeak list(s) recently. We were wondering what you folks out there are doing with Squeak, what you'd like to be able to use it for, the things that you think would be important to improve it for wider use and so on. > >Please, whether you're a frequent user or an occasional look-at-the-list type, take a moment to let us know your opinions. > >What do you use Squeak for? I use it for my everyday information management. This includes: - emails - todo management - organizing bibliographic information - writing documents, sometimes papers - programming :) - managing students and projects for university courses (- I once started working on a domain model for managing my garden but never came around making it easy enough so I can adjust it quickly to my real-world tinkering) Sometimes I use it to create presentations for conference talks using the BookMorph. Also, I use it to do programming language experiments. >If you don't use Squeak, why not? >If you used Squeak in the past and don't now, what pulled you away? > >What does Squeak lack that you think might make you use it for 'regular' development? It would be nice to have nicer rendering of morphs and fonts. >What things are too hard or annoying to do? While classes are useful, I often need instance-specific fields. So far I always implemented it myself but it would be nice to have it as part of the language. Handling files could be easier. The interface is somewhat confusing. >What would you like to be able to use Squeak for? All my presentations :) However, manually assembling morphs and layouts is somewhat tedious. Also one of the last activities (besides music, video, web browsing, and calendars) for which I have to resort to my host OS is PDF reading (beyond converting a PDF to a folder of pngs and reading that :) ). Also, editing objects is something I would love to directly from the explorer (or a similar tool). For example, I imagine dragging objects around and storing them in an instance variable of another object by simply dropping them in some tool. Also I would really like to have a model for structured documents of some kind which plays nicely with Morphic. That would include the infamous embedding of Morphs in text. Bests Patrick > >tim >-- >tim Rowledge; [hidden email]; http://www.rowledge.org/tim >C for sinking, java for drinking, Smalltalk for thinking > > > |
Re: Survey: what do you do with Squeak, what do you *want* to do?
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> On 25-02-2018, at 7:43 AM, <[hidden email]> <[hidden email]> wrote: > > I really love the answers so far! :) Me too. Keep those thoughts coming people; we want to know. tim -- tim Rowledge; [hidden email]; http://www.rowledge.org/tim Fractured Idiom:- POSH MORTEM - Death styles of the rich and famous |
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In reply to this post by Edwin Ancaer
On 23 February 2018 at 13:16, Edwin Ancaer <[hidden email]> wrote:
Hi Edwin, You might like Stephan Wessels "LaserGame" tutorial. Its is a great end-to-end tutorial for developing a regular application.
I'd suggest you do it in Squeak 3.9 to closely match the version the tutorial was done in... cheers -ben
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In reply to this post by timrowledge
On Thursday 22 February 2018 07:06 AM, tim Rowledge wrote:
> Please, whether you're a frequent user or an occasional look-at-the-list type, take a moment to let us know your opinions. > > What do you use Squeak for? Squeak is a hobby for me, not a work platform. I use it as "idea" processor (analogous to a word processor for text) for exploring ideas in programming and inspire students. My own professional interest is in the recursive decomposition of object machines. I created LaTeXMorph to help children and teachers learn LaTeX on Linux laptops through live coding. I also helped localize Etoys to Kannada language (for OLPC) and helped an art teacher in France to translate their wiki into English for a wider reach. > If you don't use Squeak, why not? I continue to use Squeak, but students find it difficult to integrate VMs and images on Linux. Squeak also does not work well with vector graphics (openGL) and audio drivers on Linux. > If you used Squeak in the past and don't now, what pulled you away? N/A. Squeak community may be small, but the discussions are very enlightening and thought-provoking. > What does Squeak lack that you think might make you use it for 'regular' development? Built-in NetMorph. It is about time objects became network-aware. Better inspection tools (e.g. display pictures for bitmaps etc.) Be able to embed Squeak into another program, say like void *squeak(void *image, int argc, char *argv[], char *environ[]) Spawn a new Squeak session with a new image created on the fly bypassing the filesystem. Concurrent processes to exploit multi-core hosts. Proper reification of host facilities (VM, object memory, ...). Taking the idea of turtles all the way down. Simpler File I/O like in Pharo. Be able to build binaries on host from within Squeak without having to go through Slang. > What things are too hard or annoying to do? Launcher should be able to pick the right VM for a given image and launch it. Create and integrate plugins out of source tree. This is important for working on embedded boards like RPi. This is more of a VM issue than Squeak (image), but it does impact Squeak. > What would you like to be able to use Squeak for? Processing ideas through live programming. It is really an excellent platform to teach/learn programming concepts before moving onto languages like C, Python, Java etc. Squeak 3.8 may have grainy fonts but it was a WOW! in regards to live programming. Later versions improved on the look and ease but don't have the same level of WOW. Regards .. Subbu |
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In reply to this post by timrowledge
I generally use Cuis as opposed to Squeak for the bulk of my day-to-day Smalltalk needs. I do still use Squeak on a semi-regular basis to cross-check issues (i.e. is a problem I'm having with the image or VM etc) and to look at older (3.7 and earlier) images for ideas. If you don't use Squeak, why not? Mainly too much accretion of cruft and the resulting instability when my code attempted to sit on top of said cruft. If you used Squeak in the past and don't now, what pulled you away? Cuis. It was the best match for my needs that I found after spending a few years bouncing between Squeak/Pharo/Cuis. I view this as unfortunate: a minimal base image very much like Cuis (only moreso) should be a shared foundation that all dialects (Squeak, Pharo etc.) could be based on. The Smalltalk community is small enough and fragmenting it further isn't good long term.
Tactically it would need to be much more minimal and modular, have API stability, documentation, direction and stop reinventing every wheel just because it's not written in Smalltalk (i.e. pick your battles). Strategically, while I very much appreciate everyone's efforts on Squeak I honestly don't see a long-term vision and think that's a problem. What things are too hard or annoying to do? When I was a beginner: getting started (I can't tell you how many times I threw up my hands and said 'not worth it' given all the missing/broken functionality, outdated documentation, broken packages etc. I started to see some daylight as I started playing with Cuis followed by a couple of big wins that sold me on sticking with it). At an intermediate level customizing core behavior (I'm looking at you, Morphic). And now that I've got a moderately large codebase I can't imagine how much effort it would be to keep it running on Squeak. What would you like to be able to use Squeak for? Everything I'm using Cuis for. (This is not at all a knock on Cuis as I love what it offers me. Rather, just acknowledging the reality that Juan or our small group of users often have to duplicate effort on things I think we (or at least I) often really wish we didn't have to.) Thanks, Phil |
Re: Survey: what do you do with Squeak, what do you *want* to do?
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In reply to this post by timrowledge
On Mon, Feb 26, 2018 at 11:14:27AM -0800, tim Rowledge wrote:
> > > > On 25-02-2018, at 7:43 AM, <[hidden email]> <[hidden email]> wrote: > > > > I really love the answers so far! :) > > Me too. Keep those thoughts coming people; we want to know. > This is turning out to be a really interesting discussion. I am happily surprised at the range of responses, and I am especially happy that so many people are using Squeak as a tool for exploring ideas, and who see Squeak as much more than just another programming language or software development tool. So yes please, keep those thoughts coming! Dave |
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