What is the plan for 4.2?

Dear all,

my impression is that we've got a gorgeous release with lots of good
things under and above the hood. So far, I'm happy. :-)

But there's going to be a Squeak 4.2, right? Now what's going to
happen to make it happen? What things are intended? Is there even a
consistent overall idea of what should be achieved for 4.2? Is there
any idea? A "vision", so to speak?

I can sense some things, I'd like to have some things. If you ask me,
personally, I'd love to see Squeak 4.2 as the best documented
Smalltalk out there. I'd also like to see more native GUI support, a
JIT compiler, and transparent multicore exploitation. Anyway, I'd like
to see more tests, and a green bar.

Eventually, I'd really really love to have a nice and high-level VM
implementation (both like and unlike PyPy). But that's probably for
6.0 or so.

Now is the time.

Best,

Michael

I'd be delighted to have a 4.2 roadmap as well and I believe it would
be beneficial to the entire community.

Ian.

2010/4/25 Michael Haupt <[hidden email]>:


--
http://mecenia.blogspot.com/

I checked out the meeting minutes from http://squeakboard.wordpress.com/.

Meeting Report for 4/7/2010
April 9, 2010 by andreasraab

....
We spent a good amount of time discussing the situation of external
packages in Squeak. We agree that the current situation is undesirable
and that hopefully something can be done about this in the 4.2 time
frame but what exactly that means is unclear at this point. Some ideas
have been voiced that need to be discussed more widely (i.e., on
Squeak-dev).


Bert mentioned in a mail on this list that
      'Package Management'

could be the grand theme for 4.2

We now have a nice base system. How do I get things into it reliably.

In addition some minor things like
- a registry for the world menu and docking bar / people are working
on it right now
- a better worked out way for loading and unloading GUI elements /
people are working on it right now
- ...
- ....

I think for the discussion it is helpful to mention 4.3 and maybe 4.4 as well.
This will help that for this discussion we can bring up basically
anything which seems to be useful. Then we can find out what is doable
for 4.2

--Hannes



On 4/26/10, Ian Trudel <[hidden email]> wrote:

I have thought about it again:

Themes:
- Documentation
- Package management
- More Tests

Plus
Open issues which did not make it into 4.1, more GUI enhancements
(this includes a one-stop place for importing and exporting resources)
and bug fixes.

However realistically speaking  - the process should be driven by the
people who want to contribute code in the areas.

The other approach is just to set a time frame - and then include what
is available at that time.

--Hannes

On 4/26/10, Hannes Hirzel <[hidden email]> wrote:

Hi,

thanks, Hannes, for pointing to the board meeting post.

On Mon, Apr 26, 2010 at 8:02 AM, Hannes Hirzel <[hidden email]> wrote:
That quite nails it, and is much more sensible than my extensive wish list. :-)

I'll keep those things in mind, though ...

> However realistically speaking  - the process should be driven by the
> people who want to contribute code in the areas.
>
> The other approach is just to set a time frame - and then include what
> is available at that time.

Hm, er, no. Not exactly a vision, right? Is there one? What is Squeak
supposed to be in 1 or 2 years? Is there anyone formulating and
conveying a roadmap? Anyone?

Best,

Michael

Michael, thank you for your answer.

I started another thread which is even less visionary, going for a
4.1.1 maintenance release ASAP. See
http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/pipermail/squeak-dev/2010-April/149629.html

However for the vision part you brought up the idea of

   "Squeak as the best documented Smalltalk system"

I like this idea.
A friend of mine is a 70 year old mathematician who used to work for
IBM 40 years ago. She says that she was taught at that documentation
is 50% of the product. I think this still applies. Of course people
always say one should browse the code in the image and it is true, it
reveals a lot. But if I want a drink out of a soda-wending machine I'd
like to know where to put in the coin and which buttons to press. Most
of the time I do not want to know how the machine is constructed.

API documentation is fine but process oriented documentation is needed
in addition.

Maybe we could have a goal of motivating 30 people contributing to
documentation. Everyone writing a little tutorial and with a small
sample application.

A calculator, a game, puzzles, a scrapbook, a world clock, ToolBuilder
examples, a small parser, some simulations, a little spreadsheet for
doing a simple budget, a flash card came, a sound library browser, an
outliner, the HelpSystem (with tags), a browser for flickr, a curl
plugin example, example accessing this NON-relational databases (JSON
based), a website done with Http view, links to Seaside more
examples,.... you name it.

Video sessions where people demonstrate how they actually work in
Squeak would be beneficial as well.

--Hannes


On 4/26/10, Michael Haupt <[hidden email]> wrote:

Hi Hannes,

On Mon, Apr 26, 2010 at 9:52 PM, Hannes Hirzel <[hidden email]> wrote:
> However for the vision part you brought up the idea of
>
>   "Squeak as the best documented Smalltalk system"
>
> I like this idea.

cool, thanks. :-)

> A friend of mine is a 70 year old mathematician who used to work for
> IBM 40 years ago. She says that she was taught at that documentation
> is 50% of the product. I think this still applies. ...

It certainly does!

> API documentation is fine but process oriented documentation is needed
> in addition.

Absolutely. I don't really know about others, but I usually learn much
better from tutorials, extrapolating usage patterns, than from sheer
API documentation. Recently, I learned how to use Java 7's
INVOKEDYNAMIC by reading the API documentation from alpha to omega.
That was interesting, but not much fun, I can tell you.

A much different but very interesting approach is the one Bruce Tate
takes in his upcoming book "Seven Languages in Seven Weeks" (Pragmatic
Programmers), in which he introduces (in the given order) Ruby, Io,
Prolog, Scala, Erlang, Clojure, and Haskell. Each language is briefly
introduced at a high level, and then there are examples. Lots of them,
and they very very quickly leave "Hello, world" style things behind,
introducing the really interesting bits of those languages without
getting overly complicated. (The Haskell chapter has not yet been
written, but the Clojure one has just been released in beta stage.)

Another great text is "Real World Haskell" by Bryan O'Sullivan, Don
Stewart, and John Goerzen. A wonderfully practical book on a
supposedly academic language. During the first few chapters, the
authors walk you through accessing the file system already, and some
chapters on, there is a complete bar code reader, from parsing the
input file (GIF, I think) over adjusting the layout of the code to
scanning the bars and emitting the code. *Cool*.

What I want to say is that such things are needed for Squeak. Not at
the same order of magnitude (I'm talking about books with several
hundreds of pages each), but in the same vein. I'm also not talking
about SBE - it's wonderful and important, but concentrates on the
tools more than on building mid-scale or larger-scale applications.

> Maybe we could have a goal of motivating 30 people contributing to
> documentation. Everyone writing a little tutorial and with a small
> sample application.

Or 15 people with 2 tutorials each, or 10 with 3, or whatever.

> A calculator, a game, puzzles, a scrapbook, a world clock, ToolBuilder
> examples, a small parser, some simulations, a little spreadsheet for
> doing a simple budget, a flash card came, a sound library browser, an
> outliner, the HelpSystem (with tags), a browser for flickr, a curl
> plugin example, example accessing this NON-relational databases (JSON
> based), a website done with Http view, links to Seaside more
> examples,.... you name it.

I could contribute a Z80 emulator. And probably a Smalltalk VM. ;-)

Best,

Michael

Thank you Michael for your detailed and interesting answer.
I put in some comments below

--Hannes

On 4/26/10, Michael Haupt <[hidden email]> wrote:
YES,
One or two people probably will provide 5 tutorials, maybe three
people 3 tutorials and the rest two or one tutorials.

30 tutorials is a reasonable goal I think. There are people in the
documentation thread who have shown interest.
Here
http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/pipermail/squeak-dev/2010-April/149074.html
and more here

http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/pipermail/squeak-dev/2010-April/149174.html

Some of them might have tutorials where just some dusting off is
needed and a check if it still works in 4.1.

For writing the tutorials my recommendation is to use Torsten
Bergmann's HelpSystem. As it is now it is good enough I think. And it
can by loaded through the help menu entry 'Extending the system' as of
now.



You mention the upcoming book of Bruce Tate "Seven Languages in Seven
Weeks" (Pragmatic Programmers), in which he introduces (in the given
order) Ruby, Io,
Prolog, Scala, Erlang, Clojure, and Haskell.

You mention that it will contain 'lots of examples'.

That is what we need.

Regarding the Z80 emulator. Yes I think that is a good idea. I assume
it runs old Z80 games at a reasonable speed these days?

And maybe that example could be used for an implementation of the MMIX
RISC computer
http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~uno/mmix.html

And this would lead to a generic set of classes for implementing these
kinds of emulators.....

Anyhow it need not be. The Z80 emulator as such is fine.
Other people on the list might provide other interpreters.

As the heading of this thread is 'What is the plan for 4.2?' we should
try to come up with a list

- title
- summary
- main responsible,
- other contact persons
- status

(it's OK for the time being if this list stays within this email thread)

Going through the wiki could be helpful as well. A suggestion, please,
for all people who start doing this, may I kindly ask you to "earmark"
pages on that wiki you think are useful with the tag
'RelevantForSqueak41"

--Hannes

"Squeak as the best documented Smalltalk system"
+1

30 tutorials is a great idea, but don't forget video.
A video walkthrough of each tutorial would be excellent and would serve for teaching tool usage as well.

I love the smell of progress in the morning!

Regards,
Sam


Sam S. Adams, IBM Distinguished Engineer, IBM Research
Mobile: 919-696-6064, email: [hidden email]
Asst: Kenndra K. Quiles. (732) 926-2292 Fax: (732) 926-2455, email: [hidden email]
<<Hebrews 11:6, Proverbs 3:5-6, Romans 1:16-17, I Corinthians 1:10>>


[hidden email] wrote on 04/28/2010 08:15:35 AM:

> Hannes Hirzel <[hidden email]>
> Sent by: [hidden email]
>
> 04/28/2010 08:15 AM
>
> Please respond to
> The general-purpose Squeak developers list <squeak-
> [hidden email]>
>
> To
>
> The general-purpose Squeak developers list <squeak-
> [hidden email]>
>
> cc
>
> Subject
>
> Re: [squeak-dev] What is the plan for 4.2?
>
> Thank you Michael for your detailed and interesting answer.
> I put in some comments below
>
> --Hannes
>
> On 4/26/10, Michael Haupt <[hidden email]> wrote:
> > Hi Hannes,
> >
> > On Mon, Apr 26, 2010 at 9:52 PM, Hannes Hirzel <[hidden email]>
> > wrote:
> >> However for the vision part you brought up the idea of
> >>
> >>   "Squeak as the best documented Smalltalk system"
> >>
> >> I like this idea.
> >
> > cool, thanks. :-)
> >
> >> A friend of mine is a 70 year old mathematician who used to work for
> >> IBM 40 years ago. She says that she was taught at that documentation
> >> is 50% of the product. I think this still applies. ...
> >
> > It certainly does!
> >
> >> API documentation is fine but process oriented documentation is needed
> >> in addition.
> >
> > Absolutely. I don't really know about others, but I usually learn much
> > better from tutorials, extrapolating usage patterns, than from sheer
> > API documentation. Recently, I learned how to use Java 7's
> > INVOKEDYNAMIC by reading the API documentation from alpha to omega.
> > That was interesting, but not much fun, I can tell you.
> >
> > A much different but very interesting approach is the one Bruce Tate
> > takes in his upcoming book "Seven Languages in Seven Weeks" (Pragmatic
> > Programmers), in which he introduces (in the given order) Ruby, Io,
> > Prolog, Scala, Erlang, Clojure, and Haskell. Each language is briefly
> > introduced at a high level, and then there are examples. Lots of them,
> > and they very very quickly leave "Hello, world" style things behind,
> > introducing the really interesting bits of those languages without
> > getting overly complicated. (The Haskell chapter has not yet been
> > written, but the Clojure one has just been released in beta stage.)
> >
> > Another great text is "Real World Haskell" by Bryan O'Sullivan, Don
> > Stewart, and John Goerzen. A wonderfully practical book on a
> > supposedly academic language. During the first few chapters, the
> > authors walk you through accessing the file system already, and some
> > chapters on, there is a complete bar code reader, from parsing the
> > input file (GIF, I think) over adjusting the layout of the code to
> > scanning the bars and emitting the code. *Cool*.
> >
> > What I want to say is that such things are needed for Squeak. Not at
> > the same order of magnitude (I'm talking about books with several
> > hundreds of pages each), but in the same vein. I'm also not talking
> > about SBE - it's wonderful and important, but concentrates on the
> > tools more than on building mid-scale or larger-scale applications.
> >
> >> Maybe we could have a goal of motivating 30 people contributing to
> >> documentation. Everyone writing a little tutorial and with a small
> >> sample application.
> >
> > Or 15 people with 2 tutorials each, or 10 with 3, or whatever.
>
> YES,
> One or two people probably will provide 5 tutorials, maybe three
> people 3 tutorials and the rest two or one tutorials.
>
> 30 tutorials is a reasonable goal I think. There are people in the
> documentation thread who have shown interest.
> Here
> http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/pipermail/squeak-dev/2010-April/149074.html
> and more here
>
> http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/pipermail/squeak-dev/2010-April/149174.html
>
> Some of them might have tutorials where just some dusting off is
> needed and a check if it still works in 4.1.
>
> For writing the tutorials my recommendation is to use Torsten
> Bergmann's HelpSystem. As it is now it is good enough I think. And it
> can by loaded through the help menu entry 'Extending the system' as of
> now.
>
>
> >> A calculator, a game, puzzles, a scrapbook, a world clock, ToolBuilder
> >> examples, a small parser, some simulations, a little spreadsheet for
> >> doing a simple budget, a flash card came, a sound library browser, an
> >> outliner, the HelpSystem (with tags), a browser for flickr, a curl
> >> plugin example, example accessing this NON-relational databases (JSON
> >> based), a website done with Http view, links to Seaside more
> >> examples,.... you name it.
> >
> > I could contribute a Z80 emulator. And probably a Smalltalk VM. ;-)
> >
> > Best,
> >
> > Michael
> >
> >
>
>
> You mention the upcoming book of Bruce Tate "Seven Languages in Seven
> Weeks" (Pragmatic Programmers), in which he introduces (in the given
> order) Ruby, Io,
> Prolog, Scala, Erlang, Clojure, and Haskell.
>
> You mention that it will contain 'lots of examples'.
>
> That is what we need.
>
> Regarding the Z80 emulator. Yes I think that is a good idea. I assume
> it runs old Z80 games at a reasonable speed these days?
>
> And maybe that example could be used for an implementation of the MMIX
> RISC computer
> http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~uno/mmix.html
>
> And this would lead to a generic set of classes for implementing these
> kinds of emulators.....
>
> Anyhow it need not be. The Z80 emulator as such is fine.
> Other people on the list might provide other interpreters.
>
> As the heading of this thread is 'What is the plan for 4.2?' we should
> try to come up with a list
>
> - title
> - summary
> - main responsible,
> - other contact persons
> - status
>
> (it's OK for the time being if this list stays within this email thread)
>
> Going through the wiki could be helpful as well. A suggestion, please,
> for all people who start doing this, may I kindly ask you to "earmark"
> pages on that wiki you think are useful with the tag
> 'RelevantForSqueak41"
>
> --Hannes
>

"30 tutorials is a great idea, but don't forget video. A video walkthrough of each tutorial would be excellent and would serve for teaching tool usage as well."

To date I've made 74 video tutorials on Squeak. I make one every week. http://www.youtube.com/user/gandysmedicineshow

Any of those could be linked in the files of TB's HelpSystem. 

I'm also willing to make videos of tutorials other people write. At this point, I make them quite quickly.  

Chris 

On 4/28/10, Chris Cunnington <[hidden email]> wrote:
Chris,
I was not aware of the fact that you have made 74 videos. I have
watched one of them recently to which you had pointed me and it was
very useful.

What we need is a list of these videos available at a more prominent place.

Speakin videos,
it would be great to have the option of playing the videos _in_ Squeak.

This might be connected to Bert Freudenbergs remark recently that the
scratch plugin should be made available in Squeak. In the beginner's
list there is some discussion going on that it is not straightforward
to play videos in Squeak these days.

I think videos would be in many cases more effective and take less time.

Thank you Chris for your willingness to do videos for other people.

--Hannes

On 4/28/10 8:34 AM, Hannes Hirzel wrote:
Many people aren't.. I'll take the opportunity to upvote them on this list again, with a more eye-catching subject. +1!

And it's pretty neat that Chris is offering to make videos of other peoples' tutorials.

> What we need is a list of these videos available at a more prominent place.

+1 for prominent links on squeak.org and in helpsystem.

Chris, one thing that could be better is these are hard to find. Googling "squeak videos" doesn't do it. Even when I
knew they're on youtube, I have found it a little tricky to find them. The naming is a bit obscure.

On 4/28/10 9:05 AM, Simon Michael wrote:
> with a more eye-catching subject. +1!

Urgh.. must proofread before sending. Subject changed.

Maybe a bit peripheral but still related to the planning process

Is it possible to download the videos for offline use? I am thinking
of a Squeak 4.1 and 4.2 'release CD' with the videos on it.

--Hannes

On 4/28/10, Simon Michael <[hidden email]> wrote:

"The naming is a bit obscure."

"Is it possible to download the videos for offline use?"

On 4/28/10 9:15 AM, Chris Cunnington wrote:
> If you come up with a name for what the channel should be, a name people think is the clearest, then I'll shut down the
> channel, and upload the videos to the newly named channel. That's very easy to do.

Will that mess up the dates ?

I ask only because I follow your videos with a feed reader, and run some feed aggregators, so I'm mindful of the noise
and loss of useful information that can result. But if there's no other way..

Speaking of which, I should try adding this feed to planet squeak. Will do.

> What would you like to call the new channel?

How about the Squeak channel ? This would mean other things could appear there too. I figure one youtube channel for
Squeak is the right number at this stage.

> (Also, I'm an admin on squeak.org <http://squeak.org>, so we can create space for videos pretty easily.)

There should be a link at http://squeak.org/Documentation/ -> Useful Resources, augmenting the video links there (or
replacing them if they're stale.)

Am 28.04.2010 18:17, schrieb Chris Cunnington:

"Is it possible to download the videos for offline use?"

I don't think from YouTube you can do that.

There are various Firefox plugins which enable you to download YouTube videos in various formats.

Cheers,
Hans-Martin

On 4/28/10 9:36 AM, Simon Michael wrote:
> Speaking of which, I should try adding this feed to planet squeak. Will do.

Done. Wish I'd thought of it sooner.

> How about the Squeak channel ? This would mean other things could appear there too. I figure one youtube channel for
> Squeak is the right number at this stage.

Or not.. I don't know, Smalltalk Medicine Show has its own identity and charm. As long as it's findable. Right now,
searching youtube for "squeak" or "smalltalk" comprehensively fails to find it. Which is a bit sad.

That search finds James Robertson's Smalltalk and Smalltalk Daily playlists (http://www.youtube.com/user/jarober). FWIW
I think his is Cincom-specific and yours is Squeak(+Pharo?)-specific.

Searching google for "squeak videos" or "smalltalk videos" also fails, as noted, but finds
http://vimeo.com/groups/squeak/videos which is another useful resource not linked at http://squeak.org/Documentation . I
remember youtube vs vimeo was discussed here a while back.

Just a little up-to-date survey data for anyone doing SEO or squeak.org doc updates.

"Tags, tags, tags...."