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]>: > 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 > > -- 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'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]>: >> 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 >> >> > > > > -- > http://mecenia.blogspot.com/ > > |
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: > 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'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]>: >>> 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 >>> >>> >> >> >> >> -- >> http://mecenia.blogspot.com/ >> >> > |
Hi,
thanks, Hannes, for pointing to the board meeting post. On Mon, Apr 26, 2010 at 8:02 AM, Hannes Hirzel <[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. 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, > > thanks, Hannes, for pointing to the board meeting post. > > On Mon, Apr 26, 2010 at 8:02 AM, Hannes Hirzel <[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. > > 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 > > |
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: > 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 |
"Squeak as the best documented Smalltalk system" |
In reply to this post by Michael Haupt-3
"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:
> "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 > 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:
> On 4/28/10, Chris Cunnington<[hidden email]> wrote: >> 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. >> > 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. 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. |
In reply to this post by Simon Michael
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: > On 4/28/10 8:34 AM, Hannes Hirzel wrote: >> On 4/28/10, Chris Cunnington<[hidden email]> wrote: >>> 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. >>> >> 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. > > 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. > > > |
In reply to this post by Michael Haupt-3
"The naming is a bit obscure."
Sigh, yea... well, that's kind of me. I've had this problem before. The thing is that when I start a project, I figure the only person it has to please is me, because I always expect I'll take heat for things I do. As a result, they always represent my kind of offbeat sense of humour.
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.
What would you like to call the new channel?
(Also, I'm an admin on squeak.org, so we can create space for videos pretty easily.)
Chris
|
In reply to this post by Michael Haupt-3
"Is it possible to download the videos for offline use?"
I don't think from YouTube you can do that.
I have copies of everything, so whatever you come up with I'm sure I can accomodate.
Chris
|
In reply to this post by Chris Cunnington
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.) |
In reply to this post by Chris Cunnington
"Is it possible to download the videos for offline use?"There are various Firefox plugins which enable you to download YouTube videos in various formats. Cheers, Hans-Martin |
In reply to this post by Simon Michael
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. |
In reply to this post by Simon Michael
"Tags, tags, tags...."
You know, that makes sense to me. I'm sure there are crazy named channels out there that are findable because something has been done by the channel administrator about tags. I haven't looked into this at all, but I bet YouTube has thought of this. I'll look into it and say tomorrow if I find anything.
Chris
|
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