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We need your help to get the Intelli-J support ball rolling...

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SeanTAllen

We need your help to get the Intelli-J support ball rolling...

Hey everyone,

So this is the skinny. We've met the basic requirements original discussed with Jet Brains early in 2011 for Redline Smalltalk support to make it onto their roadmap. We need your help to get it moved up. Jet Brains has a voting system where registered users vote up features they want to see implemented. As of today, there is now one for Redline support. The next step is pretty simple...

We need everyone to sign up for a Jet Brains account and vote for Redline support.

We need you to tweet about it.

... to email people about it.

... to google + about it.

... to stand on the street corner talking about how the world is going to come to an end unless this happens.

This could be a big deal and your help is greatly appreciated.

http://youtrack.jetbrains.net/issue/IDEA-79069

-Sean-

James Ladd

Re: We need your help to get the Intelli-J support ball rolling...

You can log in with google or yahoo too, which makes this easy.

On Tue, Dec 20, 2011 at 11:12 AM, Sean Allen <[hidden email]> wrote:

Hey everyone,

So this is the skinny. We've met the basic requirements original discussed with Jet Brains early in 2011 for Redline Smalltalk support to make it onto their roadmap. We need your help to get it moved up. Jet Brains has a voting system where registered users vote up features they want to see implemented. As of today, there is now one for Redline support. The next step is pretty simple...

We need everyone to sign up for a Jet Brains account and vote for Redline support.
We need you to tweet about it.
... to email people about it.
... to google + about it.

... to stand on the street corner talking about how the world is going to come to an end unless this happens.

This could be a big deal and your help is greatly appreciated.

http://youtrack.jetbrains.net/issue/IDEA-79069

-Sean-

bobcalco

Re: We need your help to get the Intelli-J support ball rolling...

I just saw the response from one of the folks at JetBrains that they see no business value in Redline, and would give minimal support for the plug-in, mostly as a courtesy, no matter how many votes it gets for more advanced support.

Actually, as I reflected on his comments, it made a lot of sense. The modern Java IDE's have vested a lot in the file-based development paradigm, and this paradigm is quite awkward for Smalltalk. Really, we need an environment for Redline Smalltalk development that is not tied to any of the modern IDEs.

At least, speaking for myself, I'm more interested in *that* than in integrating with XYZ existing IDEs. So much so in fact I'm interested in working on such an environment and on advancing support for Redline to work in more traditional Smalltalk fashion from binary images. This would align it better with Pharo, if Pharo is the model, IMHO.

- Bob

On Tue, Dec 20, 2011 at 12:14 AM, James Ladd <[hidden email]> wrote:

You can log in with google or yahoo too, which makes this easy.

On Tue, Dec 20, 2011 at 11:12 AM, Sean Allen <[hidden email]> wrote:

Hey everyone,

So this is the skinny. We've met the basic requirements original discussed with Jet Brains early in 2011 for Redline Smalltalk support to make it onto their roadmap. We need your help to get it moved up. Jet Brains has a voting system where registered users vote up features they want to see implemented. As of today, there is now one for Redline support. The next step is pretty simple...

We need everyone to sign up for a Jet Brains account and vote for Redline support.
We need you to tweet about it.
... to email people about it.
... to google + about it.

... to stand on the street corner talking about how the world is going to come to an end unless this happens.

This could be a big deal and your help is greatly appreciated.

http://youtrack.jetbrains.net/issue/IDEA-79069

-Sean-

SeanTAllen

Re: We need your help to get the Intelli-J support ball rolling...

On Tue, Dec 20, 2011 at 9:38 AM, Robert Calco <[hidden email]> wrote:

I just saw the response from one of the folks at JetBrains that they see no business value in Redline, and would give minimal support for the plug-in, mostly as a courtesy, no matter how many votes it gets for more advanced support.

Actually, as I reflected on his comments, it made a lot of sense. The modern Java IDE's have vested a lot in the file-based development paradigm, and this paradigm is quite awkward for Smalltalk. Really, we need an environment for Redline Smalltalk development that is not tied to any of the modern IDEs.

At least, speaking for myself, I'm more interested in *that* than in integrating with XYZ existing IDEs. So much so in fact I'm interested in working on such an environment and on advancing support for Redline to work in more traditional Smalltalk fashion from binary images. This would align it better with Pharo, if Pharo is the model, IMHO.

- Bob

You should start a conversation with James about image support. We'd love if someone picked up the ball on that.

-Sean-

Stefan Krecher

Re: We need your help to get the Intelli-J support ball rolling...

In reply to this post by bobcalco

Hi,

Am 20. Dezember 2011 15:38 schrieb Robert Calco <[hidden email]>:
> Actually, as I reflected on his comments, it made a lot of sense. The modern
> Java IDE's have vested a lot in the file-based development paradigm, and
> this paradigm is quite awkward for Smalltalk. Really, we need an environment
> for Redline Smalltalk development that is not tied to any of the modern
> IDEs.

my opinion: as i understand, one of the goals is to "spread the word"
- so it would be necessary to support the well-known IDEs (Eclipse &
Netbeans).
It's important to make it an easy decision to try out redline in a
project. And if it is possible to use it as easy as using groovy or
beanshell in a Java (EE) Project it feels not "risky" to give it a
try.

regards,
Stefan

bobcalco

Re: We need your help to get the Intelli-J support ball rolling...

In reply to this post by SeanTAllen

Sean,

On Tue, Dec 20, 2011 at 2:51 PM, Sean Allen <[hidden email]> wrote:

At least, speaking for myself, I'm more interested in *that* than in integrating with XYZ existing IDEs. So much so in fact I'm interested in working on such an environment and on advancing support for Redline to work in more traditional Smalltalk fashion from binary images. This would align it better with Pharo, if Pharo is the model, IMHO.

- Bob

You should start a conversation with James about image support. We'd love if someone picked up the ball on that.

The more I consider the best place for me to fit into this project, the more I come back to the problem of image-based development support.

This would also necessarily mean creating the development environment as well. I can't imagine an experience that would give me a better immersion in glorious gory details of that very aspect of Smalltalk that has provided me with the most significant number of Aha! moments since I got into it.

I had that experience with Dolphin, learning its MVP framework. Being able to play with a live animation while coding its model logic, then seeing the animation behaviour change as soon as the code was accepted successfully, was perhaps the moment when I realized what Smalltalk was really all about.

I don't see how coding the usual way in a file-based IDE adds that kind of whiz-bang value. So, I'm not really interested in that, except insofar as Redline doesn't yet support image-based development and it would be nice to have some kind of IDE support. But truthfully I can code happily without any IDE at all and I'd rather expend my free time to what adds the most value (as I see it).

- Bob

-Sean-

bobcalco

Re: We need your help to get the Intelli-J support ball rolling...

In reply to this post by Stefan Krecher

Stefan,

On Tue, Dec 20, 2011 at 3:13 PM, Stefan Krecher <[hidden email]> wrote:

Hi,

Am 20. Dezember 2011 15:38 schrieb Robert Calco <[hidden email]>:

> Actually, as I reflected on his comments, it made a lot of sense. The modern
> Java IDE's have vested a lot in the file-based development paradigm, and
> this paradigm is quite awkward for Smalltalk. Really, we need an environment
> for Redline Smalltalk development that is not tied to any of the modern
> IDEs.

my opinion: as i understand, one of the goals is to "spread the word"
- so it would be necessary to support the well-known IDEs (Eclipse &
Netbeans).
It's important to make it an easy decision to try out redline in a
project. And if it is possible to use it as easy as using groovy or
beanshell in a Java (EE) Project it feels not "risky" to give it a
try.

Points taken. I just personally want to code the Smalltalk way on the JVM, instead of the J2EE way in Smalltalk. As with all of my opinions expressed on such matters, YMMV. :)

- Bob

regards,
Stefan

Jeff Heon

Re: We need your help to get the Intelli-J support ball rolling...

There's certainly room for both paradigms and users of both 8)

On Dec 20, 10:16 am, Robert Calco <[hidden email]> wrote:
> > > Java IDE's have vested a lot in the file-based development paradigm, and
> > > this paradigm is quite awkward for Smalltalk. Really, we need an
> > environment
> > > for Redline Smalltalk development that is not tied to any of the modern
> > > IDEs.
>
> Points taken. I just personally want to code the Smalltalk way on the JVM,
> instead of the J2EE way in Smalltalk. As with all of my opinions expressed
> on such matters, YMMV. :)

bobcalco

Re: We need your help to get the Intelli-J support ball rolling...

Jeff,

On Tue, Dec 20, 2011 at 3:47 PM, Jeff Heon <[hidden email]> wrote:

There's certainly room for both paradigms and users of both 8)

Agree. That's what's exciting about Redline. I do think being able to work from files adds value and must be supported. Being able to experience both paradigms with full integrity would be a differentiator as most Smalltalks do one or the other. In this sense it's nice that it's starting out with file support first -- get that right and you can rope in people who are used to files and not terribly bothered to grok an entirely new way of thinking about coding. Yet. :)

- Bob

On Dec 20, 10:16 am, Robert Calco <[hidden email]> wrote:
> > > Java IDE's have vested a lot in the file-based development paradigm, and
> > > this paradigm is quite awkward for Smalltalk. Really, we need an
> > environment
> > > for Redline Smalltalk development that is not tied to any of the modern
> > > IDEs.
>

> Points taken. I just personally want to code the Smalltalk way on the JVM,
> instead of the J2EE way in Smalltalk. As with all of my opinions expressed
> on such matters, YMMV. :)

SeanTAllen

Re: We need your help to get the Intelli-J support ball rolling...

On Tue, Dec 20, 2011 at 10:58 AM, Robert Calco <[hidden email]> wrote:

Jeff,

On Tue, Dec 20, 2011 at 3:47 PM, Jeff Heon <[hidden email]> wrote:
There's certainly room for both paradigms and users of both 8)

Agree. That's what's exciting about Redline. I do think being able to work from files adds value and must be supported. Being able to experience both paradigms with full integrity would be a differentiator as most Smalltalks do one or the other. In this sense it's nice that it's starting out with file support first -- get that right and you can rope in people who are used to files and not terribly bothered to grok an entirely new way of thinking about coding. Yet. :)

That was a good portion of our thinking.

-S-

Stefan Krecher

Re: We need your help to get the Intelli-J support ball rolling...

In reply to this post by bobcalco

Hi,

yes i think too that both is possible.

Because i always wanted Smalltalk on the JVM, i made some experiments
with Amber Smalltalk a few month ago. Maybe this could be an approach
for redline too.

In short: Amber gets translated to Javascript. Rhino is a JSR 223
compliant Javascript-Engine. So i can write Smalltalk-
Code, translate it on-the-fly to Javascript and run it on the JVM -
it's even possible to access Java-Objects.
Really cool is that the scope, that is running the Javascript, is
"Serializable" - and can get persisted to a DB (or somewhere else).
This would be an approach that supports file-based and image-based
development.

So - when the eclipse-plugin is in a usable state (maybe someone likes
to help?), i'd like to start working on JSR-223 for redline.

regards,
Stefan

Am 20. Dezember 2011 16:58 schrieb Robert Calco <[hidden email]>:

>> There's certainly room for both paradigms and users of both 8)
>
>
> Agree. That's what's exciting about Redline. I do think being able to work
> from files adds value and must be supported. Being able to experience both
> paradigms with full integrity would be a differentiator as most Smalltalks
> do one or the other. In this sense it's nice that it's starting out with
> file support first -- get that right and you can rope in people who are used
> to files and not terribly bothered to grok an entirely new way of thinking
> about coding. Yet. :)

Jeff Heon

JSR-223 for redline

Maybe this project could be of some use/inspiration:
http://threecrickets.com/scripturian/
"A scalable alternative to the Java scripting standard (JSR-223)."

> In short: Amber gets translated to Javascript. Rhino is a JSR 223
> compliant Javascript-Engine. So i can write Smalltalk-
> Code, translate it on-the-fly to Javascript and run it on the JVM -
> it's even possible to access Java-Objects.
> Really cool is that the scope, that is running the Javascript, is
> "Serializable" - and can get persisted to a DB (or somewhere else).
> This would be an approach that supports file-based and image-based
> development.
>
> So - when the eclipse-plugin is in a usable state (maybe someone likes
> to help?), i'd like to start working on JSR-223 for redline.

bobcalco

Re: JSR-223 for redline

At first blush that sort of reminds me of the DLR (Dynamic Language Runtime) for .NET. Interesting, thanks for the link, methinks it's well worth a look-see.

- Bob

On Tue, Dec 20, 2011 at 4:34 PM, Jeff Heon <[hidden email]> wrote:

Maybe this project could be of some use/inspiration:
http://threecrickets.com/scripturian/
"A scalable alternative to the Java scripting standard (JSR-223)."

> In short: Amber gets translated to Javascript. Rhino is a JSR 223
> compliant Javascript-Engine. So i can write Smalltalk-
> Code, translate it on-the-fly to Javascript and run it on the JVM -
> it's even possible to access Java-Objects.
> Really cool is that the scope, that is running the Javascript, is
> "Serializable" - and can get persisted to a DB (or somewhere else).
> This would be an approach that supports file-based and image-based
> development.
>
> So - when the eclipse-plugin is in a usable state (maybe someone likes
> to help?), i'd like to start working on JSR-223 for redline.

Lee Breisacher-2

Re: We need your help to get the Intelli-J support ball rolling...

In reply to this post by Stefan Krecher

My understanding is that the recent versions of Rhino are NOT in fact JSR-223 compliant. In fact, I'm not sure there's much of anything useful that is JSR-223 compliant.

Stefan, I am a big eclipse fan and would love to help with the plugin, but (1) I'm pretty busy with my regular paying job, (2) I'd like to help with 'core' Redline also. I can try to do a little on each, but...

As for the discussion about image-based vs file-based, I have a question for all you image fans: Back in the old days (1980s), I believe one of the biggest reasons that Smalltalk did not take off in a big way was exactly because of the image. One giant thing with all your code in it. In particular, the fact that you could not easily make a nice (small) deliverable executable (e.g. a .exe file) out of your program. That's one of the reasons I'm encouraged by file-based Redline. What's your response to that?

Kevin Driedger-4

Re: We need your help to get the Intelli-J support ball rolling...

Having a large file with all your files in it did make for a difficult time of delivering an exe. In later versions of VisualWorks Smalltalk it could be mitigated by starting with a stripped down image and adding the code you wanted as parcels. This is the way we ended up delivering software.

Another drawback of images that I see is the temptation/tendency to not define clear boundaries i.e. dependency separation but it sure does make for quick and pleasurable development.

Realistically, what do you really want to remove? The IDE/GUI Maker? The Compiler? Test projects? This list really is short and can be contained.

Consider that java/c# deliver all the base class libraries. The code you/your team write on the side is really not that much and we certainly are not dealing with the kind of resource constrains that we had in the past. It's rare that code size really effects your ability to deliver.

On the up side, it seems that the magic of development is in the image. It was pointed out earlier that perhaps the ability to manipulate live objects is really where the magic was but it is quite nice to stop development on Friday and pick it back up Monday in the middle of a debug session after shutting down your computer for the weekend.

]{evin

On Tue, Dec 20, 2011 at 1:24 PM, Lee Breisacher <[hidden email]> wrote:

As for the discussion about image-based vs file-based, I have a question for all you image fans: Back in the old days (1980s), I believe one of the biggest reasons that Smalltalk did not take off in a big way was exactly because of the image. One giant thing with all your code in it. In particular, the fact that you could not easily make a nice (small) deliverable executable (e.g. a .exe file) out of your program. That's one of the reasons I'm encouraged by file-based Redline. What's your response to that?

Mark Derricutt-2

Re: We need your help to get the Intelli-J support ball rolling...

In reply to this post by bobcalco

...and in one sentence - you've probably just called for the death of Redline.st IMHO.

If you're going to force your users into using X IDE, Y build chain that fits no-where in the existing ecosystem, you're not really going to gain traction from non-Smalltalkers. This was one of the original problems with Smalltalk IMHO as well ( yes, the browser UI works reallllllllly well, but....)

--
"Great artists are extremely selfish and arrogant things" — Steven Wilson, Porcupine Tree

On Wed, Dec 21, 2011 at 3:38 AM, Robert Calco <[hidden email]> wrote:

Really, we need an environment for Redline Smalltalk development that is not tied to any of the modern IDEs.

Mark Derricutt-2

Re: We need your help to get the Intelli-J support ball rolling...

In reply to this post by Lee Breisacher-2

Rhino - as forked by Oracle has JSR-223 extensions, that code is NOT in the mainline rhino repositories, and people seem to be jumping hoops of patching and manipulating jar files in order to bundle that into the JDK/OpenJDK.

Rhino is has also usually been rather slow - undee the 1.8dev branches ( which now support CommonJS modules - w00t ) some awesome work has been done to solve the problem of large JS closures generating methods larger than 64k which means you have to run Rhino in interpretted, rather than JITed mode - so should yield reasonable results.

--
"Great artists are extremely selfish and arrogant things" — Steven Wilson, Porcupine Tree

On Wed, Dec 21, 2011 at 7:24 AM, Lee Breisacher <[hidden email]> wrote:

My understanding is that the recent versions of Rhino are NOT in fact JSR-223 compliant. In fact, I'm not sure there's much of anything useful that is JSR-223 compliant.

bobcalco

Re: We need your help to get the Intelli-J support ball rolling...

In reply to this post by Mark Derricutt-2

Mark,

On Tue, Dec 20, 2011 at 6:49 PM, Mark Derricutt <[hidden email]> wrote:

...and in one sentence - you've probably just called for the death of Redline.st IMHO.

Hmmm. Good thing it was a humble opinion. ;)

If you're going to force your users into using X IDE, Y build chain that fits no-where in the existing ecosystem, you're not really going to gain traction from non-Smalltalkers.

Force is not in my vocabulary. Perhaps I was unclear? I personally wish to devote my energy to supporting an image-based workflow in a more traditional Smalltalk paradigm -- with whatever whiz-bang twists we can throw in to improve the state of the art. I see value in doing things the traditional Java way, and the reasons behind supporting that, and you are free to contribute to that side of the effort without fear of predictions from me that you're consigning Redline.st to certain doom. :)

Redline.st thrives best if we successfully implement both paradigms correctly and creatively.

This was one of the original problems with Smalltalk IMHO as well ( yes, the browser UI works reallllllllly well, but....)

I think the image-based paradigm for me is less about how images work under the hood (I'm flexible about finding new ways to improve that side of it) but what life in the development environment is like.

- Bob

--
"Great artists are extremely selfish and arrogant things" — Steven Wilson, Porcupine Tree

On Wed, Dec 21, 2011 at 3:38 AM, Robert Calco <[hidden email]> wrote:
Really, we need an environment for Redline Smalltalk development that is not tied to any of the modern IDEs.

Lee Breisacher-2

Re: We need your help to get the Intelli-J support ball rolling...

In reply to this post by Kevin Driedger-4

> Consider that java/c# deliver all the base class libraries.

Yes, but the runtime only loads classes that are used, generally at the moment they are used. I'd like to see RL work that way (which is the way it is going at the moment).

I don't quite get the desire to have an image (but I'm fine with others persuing it, Bob), although I certainly want that "magic" feel -- I just hold out hope it can be done within eclipse (and others).

I also don't get the desire for a non-standard IDE. Again, I think the fact that Smalltalk has nearly always lived in its own non-standard world is one of the reasons it has not gained wider use. If we can make RL work smoothly within eclipse (and IJ), that's a huge win imo. Developers want to work in these nice standard supported environments.

SeanTAllen

Re: We need your help to get the Intelli-J support ball rolling...

Hello all,

The file v image issue comes up a lot. I am going to get an FAQ together very soon.

Basically...

yes, files. any editor. any ide.

yes to a lot of what is the normal smalltalk development style and people think about in terms of an image.

those being:

live objects, resumable exceptions, on the fly code modification etc.

they are a high priority for us.

the image as a persistence mechanism is not terribly high on our priority list right now.

I've said this more eloquently in the past. The list history isn't that large, you can probably find me saying something like this before.

I'll be looking for it when I'm writing up the FAQ for this.

The important thing about the above is that we can make live objects, on the fly code modification etc work no matter what the environment.

-Sean-

On Tue, Dec 20, 2011 at 3:19 PM, Lee Breisacher <[hidden email]> wrote:

> Consider that java/c# deliver all the base class libraries.

Yes, but the runtime only loads classes that are used, generally at the moment they are used. I'd like to see RL work that way (which is the way it is going at the moment).

I don't quite get the desire to have an image (but I'm fine with others persuing it, Bob), although I certainly want that "magic" feel -- I just hold out hope it can be done within eclipse (and others).

I also don't get the desire for a non-standard IDE. Again, I think the fact that Smalltalk has nearly always lived in its own non-standard world is one of the reasons it has not gained wider use. If we can make RL work smoothly within eclipse (and IJ), that's a huge win imo. Developers want to work in these nice standard supported environments.