Why are SmallTalk projects/source code hosted on SS3 Gemstone instead of Git?
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Why are SmallTalk projects/source code hosted on SS3 Gemstone instead of Git/GitHub?
I'm coming to SmallTalk from the world of web development with open source software, primarily Rails, and I'm very familiar with the amazing social network/source code repository that is GitHub. It is truly an industry defining entity, so many open source projects have been able to harness the ease of use, features and community around Git and GitHub.
At the moment, as I'm trying to learn more about SmallTalk and Pharo especially, (my primary interest in Pharo is to use it as a web development platform), I am a bit shocked, if I may be frank, at the tooling used for source code and open source project management. I see that the popular trend now is to move to SS3/Gemstone, and I appreciate anyone that helps open source development/projects, but I can't see how they can even come close to the functionality of GitHub for source code hosting and OS project management, so I pose the question: is there an effort, why or why not, to start integrating with GitHub and Git for source code management?
I know that historical precent and the tools built into Pharo/SmallTalk images, like Monticello are predecessors to GUI source control, but given the leaps that Git has managed to take, in distributed source code management, how does the existing SmallTalk community feel about it's current tooling in this regard?
Thanks, Victor Stan Schedule me: http://quicklyschedule.quicklyschedule.me/victor Add me to your address book - it's easy! http://contactmonkey.com/victor |
Re: Why are SmallTalk projects/source code hosted on SS3 Gemstone instead of Git?
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This isn't entirely in response to your question - it's really just a
rant on the topic that's been building up for a while, and I'm only speaking as a developer that enjoys using Smalltalk and Pharo in particular. Personally - even as someone originally with a background in C and Java and so well used to file based SCM systems - I much prefer Monticello and working in the image in general. It worries me how much Git and GitHub is venerated by the recent generation of the Open Source community. Git itself is just a DVCS, it's not the first and it's not the last, it's arguably not the best or the worst either. It's just the most trendy right now. If we had a proper seamless connectivity to Git from within the image, I'd probably use it, as it would allow some external tools - particularly code review tools - to work a little better. But I don't think it'd be a revolution and I definitely wouldn't use GitHub. I'd host my own remote repository, or use something like BitBucket instead. I also don't think Git made any particular leaps in source management. Everything that Git can do, other tools can do one way or another. Some of the Git workflow is optimised towards working a particular way, but that doesn't mean you can't do those things in other systems. Additionally, some of the Git workflow is needlessly complicated (what's the point of staging for your local repository?) However, it's GitHub that really worries me. I'm disturbed by how often it seems that people assume Git means GitHub. GitHub is just one service for hosting projects, and it's a wholly commercial, proprietary one - and it's quickly becoming a bigger single point of failure for the Open Source world than Sourceforge was. It's just one option, and should never be considered to be the only one. In addition to that, it's still fundamentally focussed on file based projects - no matter how good Pharo based Git integration gets, GitHub will always involve some degree of impedance mismatch. There's a lot to be said for having tools designed specifically to work with your language and environment - that's why IDEs exist. So I think the Squeak community made the right decision when they originally created Squeaksource, and now the Pharo community is making the right decision by getting behind SmalltalkHub. GitHub has some very good features, but I think the community in general would be better served by having some of those features - and features in GitHub competitors - in SmalltalkHub than by trying to shoehorn Smalltalk projects onto GitHub. (Though some have already achieved that). In the end, I think the whole issue generates more talk than it's worth. If the owner of a project is happy with how they're handling their source at the moment, then there's no problem, even if someone not involved in the project wouldn't have made that choice themselves. If they're not - there are already alternatives. BTW, if you want to use GitHub for your own projects in Pharo, you can - just have a look at FileTree (https://github.com/dalehenrich/filetree). You have to use git itself external to the image - as FileTree is just responsible for creating a structure suitable for file-based source control, but it does work. Regards, Stuart On 20 March 2013 12:58, Victor Stan <[hidden email]> wrote: > Why are SmallTalk projects/source code hosted on SS3 Gemstone instead of > Git/GitHub? > > I'm coming to SmallTalk from the world of web development with open source > software, primarily Rails, and I'm very familiar with the amazing social > network/source code repository that is GitHub. It is truly an industry > defining entity, so many open source projects have been able to harness the > ease of use, features and community around Git and GitHub. > > At the moment, as I'm trying to learn more about SmallTalk and Pharo > especially, (my primary interest in Pharo is to use it as a web development > platform), I am a bit shocked, if I may be frank, at the tooling used for > source code and open source project management. I see that the popular trend > now is to move to SS3/Gemstone, and I appreciate anyone that helps open > source development/projects, but I can't see how they can even come close to > the functionality of GitHub for source code hosting and OS project > management, so I pose the question: is there an effort, why or why not, to > start integrating with GitHub and Git for source code management? > > I know that historical precent and the tools built into Pharo/SmallTalk > images, like Monticello are predecessors to GUI source control, but given > the leaps that Git has managed to take, in distributed source code > management, how does the existing SmallTalk community feel about it's > current tooling in this regard? > > Thanks, > > Victor Stan > > Schedule me: > http://quicklyschedule.quicklyschedule.me/victor > > Add me to your address book - it's easy! > http://contactmonkey.com/victor > |
Re: Why are SmallTalk projects/source code hosted on SS3 Gemstone instead of Git?
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In reply to this post by Victor
I'm ashamed to admit that, but I'm not aware about those magic functionality and amazing advantages GitHub can offer. Couild you please explain (me) that? (I'm not ignorant in general, just didn't have a chance/time to explore that, though I've used GitHub few times and have account there.) And I hope that overview could be a good specification for smalltalkers to implement and perhaps even excel.
As for me, I'm not a big fan of migrating everything to GitHub, not only because I don't know its advantages but also because I still believe in objects. I still think live objects are much better then dead text. And I just beware of giving this essential advantage for some bells and whistles.
-- Best regards, Dennis Schetinin 2013/3/20 Victor Stan <[hidden email]>
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Re: Why are SmallTalk projects/source code hosted on SS3 Gemstone instead of Git?
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In reply to this post by Victor
Rails had 468 committers for its 3.2.0 release [1]. Pharo probably had
less than a tenth of that between 1.4 and 2.0 and Seaside 3.0 maybe a fifth of Pharo. As Stuart mentioned there is work being done. Smalltalk is the 48th most popular language on github[2] and so there are projects and tooling for interacting with it. On the mailing list archive across all Smalltalk public mailing lists there are ~2200 posts about github[3] discussing various reasons why things are or are not happening. Its not that there's not effort, or it doesn't exist, or isn't considered. Its that its either not there yet, or not going to get there because a better option will come up or along that people in the more-limited-in-number-of-people-than-you're-used-to open source Smalltalk community want to work on more than github integration [4]. Which features of git are you missing? Which of github? [1] http://contributors.rubyonrails.org/releases [2] https://github.com/languages/Smalltalk [3] http://forum.world.st/template/NamlServlet.jtp?macro=search_page&node=1294792&query=github [4] http://www.smalltalkhub.com On 03/19/2013 06:58 PM, Victor Stan wrote: > Why are SmallTalk projects/source code hosted on SS3 Gemstone instead of > Git/GitHub? > > I'm coming to SmallTalk from the world of web development with open > source software, primarily Rails, and I'm very familiar with the amazing > social network/source code repository that is GitHub. It is truly an > industry defining entity, so many open source projects have been able to > harness the ease of use, features and community around Git and GitHub. > > At the moment, as I'm trying to learn more about SmallTalk and Pharo > especially, (my primary interest in Pharo is to use it as a web > development platform), I am a bit shocked, if I may be frank, at the > tooling used for source code and open source project management. I see > that the popular trend now is to move to SS3/Gemstone, and I appreciate > anyone that helps open source development/projects, but I can't see how > they can even come close to the functionality of GitHub for source code > hosting and OS project management, so I pose the question: is there an > effort, why or why not, to start integrating with GitHub and Git for > source code management? > > I know that historical precent and the tools built into Pharo/SmallTalk > images, like Monticello are predecessors to GUI source control, but > given the leaps that Git has managed to take, in distributed source code > management, how does the existing SmallTalk community feel about it's > current tooling in this regard? > > Thanks, > > Victor Stan > > Schedule me: > http://quicklyschedule.quicklyschedule.me/victor > > Add me to your address book - it's easy! > http://contactmonkey.com/victor > |
Re: Why are SmallTalk projects/source code hosted on SS3 Gemstone instead of Git?
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In reply to this post by Victor
On 2013-03-20, at 02:58, Victor Stan <[hidden email]> wrote: > Why are SmallTalk projects/source code hosted on SS3 Gemstone instead of > Git/GitHub? > > I'm coming to SmallTalk from the world of web development with open source > software, primarily Rails, and I'm very familiar with the amazing social > network/source code repository that is GitHub. It is truly an industry > defining entity, so many open source projects have been able to harness the > ease of use, features and community around Git and GitHub. > > At the moment, as I'm trying to learn more about SmallTalk and Pharo > especially, (my primary interest in Pharo is to use it as a web development > platform), I am a bit shocked, if I may be frank, at the tooling used for > source code and open source project management. I see that the popular > trend now is to move to SS3/Gemstone, and I appreciate anyone that helps > open source development/projects, but I can't see how they can even come > close to the functionality of GitHub for source code hosting and OS project > management, so I pose the question: is there an effort, why or why not, to > start integrating with GitHub and Git for source code management? > > I know that historical precent and the tools built into Pharo/SmallTalk > images, like Monticello are predecessors to GUI source control, but given > the leaps that Git has managed to take, in distributed source code > management, how does the existing SmallTalk community feel about it's > current tooling in this regard? there are efforts being made, albeit slow ones, but eventually we will get there. 1. There is dale henrich's fileout format filetree so we can actually run any file-based versioning system ontop: https://github.com/dalehenrich/filetree This is already used in a couple of projects, for instance a regular fileout of the pharo core: https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo-core 2. There is a working (read and write) implementation of a git repository which can be loaded as a FileSystem in the image: FilesystemGit http://smalltalkhub.com/#!/~FileSystemGitDev/FileSystem-Git and a working image form here https://ci.inria.fr/pharo-contribution/job/FileSystem-Git/ What is missing? Mostly time to finish the full git-protocol so we can solve the current lack of communication in the implementation. If you are motivated, please join! |
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In reply to this post by Victor
On Wed, Mar 20, 2013 at 2:58 AM, Victor Stan <[hidden email]> wrote:
First welcome! As others have said, there are efforts to use git as source control and I am looking forward to their progress. As for slow adoption of git, I think the following might be some of the reasons:
1) file based VCS, are a bit rude for Smalltalk, which operates on smaller source granularity, and typicall Smalltalk based VCS handle that in more natural way 2) Monticello is distributed VCS, and I am not so sure that it compared to git lacks many features that would be esseintial to Smalltalk developer. (but since I am only causal user of both, I might be wrong on this)
1+2 = there are a bit less reasons to switch than it appears on the first look, and since every switch requires energy, it did not happen yet. I am certainly looking forward to it :) , since Github visibility would be very beneficial.
Once again welcome! Davorin Rusevljan |
Re: Why are SmallTalk projects/source code hosted on SS3 Gemstone instead of Git?
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On 2013-03-20, at 10:50, Davorin Rusevljan <[hidden email]> wrote: > On Wed, Mar 20, 2013 at 2:58 AM, Victor Stan <[hidden email]> wrote: > >> Why are SmallTalk projects/source code hosted on SS3 Gemstone instead of >> Git/GitHub? >> >> I'm coming to SmallTalk from the world of web development with open source >> software, primarily Rails, and I'm very familiar with the amazing social >> network/source code repository that is GitHub. It is truly an industry >> defining entity, so many open source projects have been able to harness the >> ease of use, features and community around Git and GitHub. >> >> At the moment, as I'm trying to learn more about SmallTalk and Pharo >> especially, (my primary interest in Pharo is to use it as a web development >> platform), I am a bit shocked, if I may be frank, at the tooling used for >> source code and open source project management. I see that the popular >> trend now is to move to SS3/Gemstone, and I appreciate anyone that helps >> open source development/projects, but I can't see how they can even come >> close to the functionality of GitHub for source code hosting and OS project >> management, so I pose the question: is there an effort, why or why not, to >> start integrating with GitHub and Git for source code management? >> >> I know that historical precent and the tools built into Pharo/SmallTalk >> images, like Monticello are predecessors to GUI source control, but given >> the leaps that Git has managed to take, in distributed source code >> management, how does the existing SmallTalk community feel about it's >> current tooling in this regard? >> >> > > First welcome! > > As others have said, there are efforts to use git as source control and I > am looking forward to their progress. As for slow adoption of git, I think > the following might be some of the reasons: > > 1) file based VCS, are a bit rude for Smalltalk, which operates on smaller > source granularity, and typicall Smalltalk based VCS handle that in more > natural way not true... and just for the record, Monticello is file-based too, it does not store any high-level information. If you store each method as separate file as done with filetree you get exactly the same granularity as monticello. see: https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo-core > 2) Monticello is distributed VCS, and I am not so sure that it compared to > git lacks many features that would be esseintial to Smalltalk developer. > (but since I am only causal user of both, I might be wrong on this) as a model monticello and git overlap pretty well, however many things are much more implicit in monticello than in git (namely branches). |
Re: Why are SmallTalk projects/source code hosted on SS3 Gemstone instead of Git?
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In reply to this post by Victor
Victor Stan wrote:
> Why are SmallTalk projects/source code hosted on SS3 Gemstone instead of > Git/GitHub? Because we have been using DVCS since a few years before git. Monticello is not as powerful as git, but it is integrated and the difference is not large enough to force change yet. > I'm coming to SmallTalk from the world of web development with open source > software, primarily Rails, and I'm very familiar with the amazing social > network/source code repository that is GitHub. It is truly an industry > defining entity, so many open source projects have been able to harness the > ease of use, features and community around Git and GitHub. Our perspective is a bit different. We use Moose and see the work of Veronica Uquillas Gomez on Torch (http://soft.vub.ac.be/torch/Home.html) and ask ourselves why people continue using bad abstractions. > At the moment, as I'm trying to learn more about SmallTalk and Pharo > especially, (my primary interest in Pharo is to use it as a web development > platform), I am a bit shocked, if I may be frank, at the tooling used for > source code and open source project management. I see that the popular > trend now is to move to SS3/Gemstone, and I appreciate anyone that helps > open source development/projects, but I can't see how they can even come > close to the functionality of GitHub for source code hosting and OS project > management, so I pose the question: is there an effort, why or why not, to > start integrating with GitHub and Git for source code management? Because it isn't that good. It is better than what we now have widely deployed, but it doesn't come close to what we can do when we find the time to integrate all the nice research tools. GitHub is centralized and a single point of failure. We will see it replaced by a distributed system. So it is a question of how much effort we want to put into what for us can only be an intermediate tool chain and way to connect to non-smalltalk parts of the systems we develop. Stephan Eggermont |
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In reply to this post by Camillo Bruni-3
On Wed, Mar 20, 2013 at 11:39 AM, Camillo Bruni <[hidden email]> wrote:
My mistake for using term "file based" loosely. I was refereeing to situation when when whole module,. package or similar larger unit of code is stored in vcs as atomic unit. As monticello can distinguish different methods and classes (probably because it knows it is storing smalltalk code and its syntax).
To fit its model into the git and prevent it from making silly merges and things alike, it is necessary to store just one method into one file, model classes by directories, and stuff remaining meta info into the (currently controversial) json encoded meta files.
It is quite clever and practical solution to fit Smalltalk model of work into the git storage, but I guess it is a bit unusual usage pattern for git. And certainly I would not expect anyone to do any serious browsing or looking at the code just by looking into such git directory on local disk, or through generic git web interface.
My point that I was trying to make is that just plain git does not seem to be clearly superior to monticello/metacello, but combination of git and montiocello in the direction FileTree seems to be taking is.
Davorin Rusevljan |
Re: Why are SmallTalk projects/source code hosted on SS3 Gemstone instead of Git?
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In reply to this post by Victor
Hi victor
For the record in 2002 we got monticello and it was cool. Monticello got three way merge way before a lot of DVCS. :) Now it is a bit showing its limits and age. We are working on having a back end for Git but not at the price to lose SEMANTIC versioning. Then I prefer to get a vector graphics engine than a git back end because this is not because we will have a git back-end that people will be able to sell products! We do not version stupid text but nice classes and methods with method granularity. And we do not want to force everybody to be a master in git to nicely work with Pharo. Then have a look at SmalltalkHub because this is where we are moving (and probably in a git based system). If you are interested by pharo for the web do not miss Amber and Seaside. Stef PS: Smalltalk and not SmallTalk On Mar 20, 2013, at 2:58 AM, Victor Stan <[hidden email]> wrote:
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Re: Why are SmallTalk projects/source code hosted on SS3 Gemstone instead of Git?
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In reply to this post by Paul DeBruicker
thanks Paul
:) we are making progress > Rails had 468 committers for its 3.2.0 release [1]. Pharo probably had > less than a tenth of that between 1.4 and 2.0 and Seaside 3.0 maybe a > fifth of Pharo. As Stuart mentioned there is work being done. > Smalltalk is the 48th most popular language on github[2] and so there > are projects and tooling for interacting with it. On the mailing list > archive across all Smalltalk public mailing lists there are ~2200 posts > about github[3] discussing various reasons why things are or are not > happening. > > Its not that there's not effort, or it doesn't exist, or isn't > considered. Its that its either not there yet, or not going to get > there because a better option will come up or along that people in the > more-limited-in-number-of-people-than-you're-used-to open source > Smalltalk community want to work on more than github integration [4]. > > > > > Which features of git are you missing? Which of github? > > > > > [1] http://contributors.rubyonrails.org/releases > [2] https://github.com/languages/Smalltalk > [3] > http://forum.world.st/template/NamlServlet.jtp?macro=search_page&node=1294792&query=github > [4] http://www.smalltalkhub.com > > On 03/19/2013 06:58 PM, Victor Stan wrote: >> Why are SmallTalk projects/source code hosted on SS3 Gemstone instead of >> Git/GitHub? >> >> I'm coming to SmallTalk from the world of web development with open >> source software, primarily Rails, and I'm very familiar with the amazing >> social network/source code repository that is GitHub. It is truly an >> industry defining entity, so many open source projects have been able to >> harness the ease of use, features and community around Git and GitHub. >> >> At the moment, as I'm trying to learn more about SmallTalk and Pharo >> especially, (my primary interest in Pharo is to use it as a web >> development platform), I am a bit shocked, if I may be frank, at the >> tooling used for source code and open source project management. I see >> that the popular trend now is to move to SS3/Gemstone, and I appreciate >> anyone that helps open source development/projects, but I can't see how >> they can even come close to the functionality of GitHub for source code >> hosting and OS project management, so I pose the question: is there an >> effort, why or why not, to start integrating with GitHub and Git for >> source code management? >> >> I know that historical precent and the tools built into Pharo/SmallTalk >> images, like Monticello are predecessors to GUI source control, but >> given the leaps that Git has managed to take, in distributed source code >> management, how does the existing SmallTalk community feel about it's >> current tooling in this regard? >> >> Thanks, >> >> Victor Stan >> >> Schedule me: >> http://quicklyschedule.quicklyschedule.me/victor >> >> Add me to your address book - it's easy! >> http://contactmonkey.com/victor >> > > |
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Thank you all for your responses, I appreciate all the good feedback around this topic. Rather than try to address individual replies in their respective email responses, I will summary what I learned and what my thoughts are.
The trend now is to use http://smalltalkhub.com/ which is a bit like a combination of GitHub (source control) and https://rubygems.org/ (library repository).
There are historical precedents for why things are the way they are now: Monticello was really good when it came out and still a fairly useful tool, the nature of Smalltalk images is that all the tools tend to be inside of the image and thus there is little incentive to focus on external tools. I think the nature of the web and the power of contemporary browsers has given rise to quite advanced web applications which have been able to surpass certain tools inside of the traditional Smalltalk image (hence the topic: Github). I'm not going to list its features, anyone that isn't familiar can very easily become familiar with what it can do by trying it out, its free.
There's been some confusion, probably because of my forming of the question with poor mapping from the tools that I know to what Pharo/Smalltalk has to offer... so really, there is the question of source control and sharing code between teams and developers and library hosting.
Online services that leverage source control and offer tools like easy online browsing of repositories/source code as well as the ability for developers to do pull requests and code review, not to mention forking repositories and reviving dead code, documenting and bug tracking.
Besides managing source code, there is the concept of libraries, which overlaps greatly with source code management, but such repositories need not have all the tools previously listed, but do need to have a way to allow developers to quickly find and tap into existing code libraries; to easily create, share and download these libraries is central such a service. In this regard I think Monticello and http://www.squeaksource.com/ are the tools in Smalltalk world that map the most to that concept (https://rubygems.org/)? (correct me if I'm wrong). I understand the image/smalltalk kernel as a self sufficient enclosed world is why live objects are possible, and that's the beauty of Smalltalk. I see there is effort to build towards a more open (in the sense of the world wide web) set of tools to manage code and libraries. I still don't understand why smalltalkhub.com is trying to be both a library and source code control tool at the same time.
I think leveraging tools currently available, and which have a large user-base is better for allowing new users who come from another environment -- pretty much everyone that deals with open source web and mobile application development knows how to use GitHub. But I will stick around and see how those that know more about the Smalltalk world make their decisions. I want to see a growing and thriving ST community!
Traditionally and culturally, at first glance, forgive me if I'm stereotyping, but the smalltalk world seems to be heavily biased towards academic and large proprietary enterprise tooling and development environments. I think this is a reason (among others, from what I've read around) why ST hasn't picked up steam as the WWW grew up, the developers and tools were simply not geared toward such an environment. However, while I'm guessing that most developers in ST are still heavily oriented toward enterprise platforms, we can all benefit by bringing aboard more developers and creating a large market and demand for ST developers, and I'm going to go on a limb here and say that that's not going to happen until we can integrate with the tools and culture of contemporary web development. Anyone have opinions on this?
Perhaps the current tools that I've described aren't the best fit for Smalltalk, and perhaps I'm still currently limited because of my personal development culture 'up-bringing'. I would love to get to know what a more idiomatic toolset can do, as Pharo and the smalltalk environment seems to be quite powerful as is and has been for a long time, and still is ahead of many current and more popular languages and tools.
There are other topics I would like to explore in more detail sometime soon:
Cheers, Victor Stan Schedule me: http://quicklyschedule.quicklyschedule.me/victor Add me to your address book - it's easy! http://contactmonkey.com/victor On Wed, Mar 20, 2013 at 4:32 PM, stephane ducasse <[hidden email]> wrote: thanks Paul |
Re: Why are SmallTalk projects/source code hosted on SS3 Gemstone instead of Git?
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On 21/03/13 10:09 PM, Victor Stan wrote:
> > Traditionally and culturally, at first glance, forgive me if I'm > stereotyping, but the smalltalk world seems to be heavily biased towards > academic and large proprietary enterprise tooling and development > environments. I think this is a reason (among others, from what I've > read around) why ST hasn't picked up steam as the WWW grew up, the > developers and tools were simply not geared toward such an environment. The "why did Smalltalk not take off" debate is a regular occurrence on Smalltalk discussion forums. There used to be Smalltalk implementations that targeted smaller companies. Digitalk Smalltalk was one of these. Unfortunately, at the critical WWW breakout moment, Digitalk was bought by ParcPlace, and eventually killed. Perhaps an independent Digitalk could have adapted as you would have expected. > However, while I'm guessing that most developers in ST are still heavily > oriented toward enterprise platforms, we can all benefit by bringing > aboard more developers and creating a large market and demand for ST > developers, and I'm going to go on a limb here and say that that's not > going to happen until we can integrate with the tools and culture of > contemporary web development. Anyone have opinions on this? IMHO, many in the community agree with your points, but the community is just not big enough at this point to address it all, as quickly as everyone would like (i.e. already done). > I hope I can get better at ST and try to contribute myself to some > things that interest me more... > > Cheers, > > > Victor Stan > > Schedule me: > http://quicklyschedule.quicklyschedule.me/victor Since you're in Toronto, have you ever come to the Toronto Smalltalk User Group (http://smalltalk.toronto.on.ca) meetings? We've been meeting for 20 or more years. You just missed the MagLev talk. The July Patio Night would be a good time to get filled in by old-time TO-Smalltalkers. |
Re: Why are SmallTalk projects/source code hosted on SS3 Gemstone instead of Git?
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In reply to this post by Victor
I am curently working in a business where the whole day is spend with
the tech you mention (that means with a team of devs). * jQuery * HTML5 * Symfony 1.x & 2.x PHP (including composer.phar, and a ton of Bundles e.g. REST etc) * Java (Maven2 included for builds, RabbitMQ for some stuff) for heavy lifting * Git/Bitbucket * Newrelic monitoring * PhpStorm & SpringIDE as IDEs * Jenkins building enging Still, Pharo feels better when I've to explore ideas and think straight. Especially when on e needs to prototype fast. Once I grokked Smalltalk, my thinking about code switched to something different. For the better. And not everyone is willing to invest the time it takes to grok Smalltalk, that may be the point. Syntax is easy, OO with messages is harder. As Sven has in his signature: Smalltalk is the red pill. True indeed. Phil 2013/3/22 Victor Stan <[hidden email]>: > Thank you all for your responses, I appreciate all the good feedback around > this topic. > > Rather than try to address individual replies in their respective email > responses, I will summary what I learned and what my thoughts are. > > The trend now is to use http://smalltalkhub.com/ which is a bit like a > combination of GitHub (source control) and https://rubygems.org/ (library > repository). > > There are historical precedents for why things are the way they are now: > Monticello was really good when it came out and still a fairly useful tool, > the nature of Smalltalk images is that all the tools tend to be inside of > the image and thus there is little incentive to focus on external tools. I > think the nature of the web and the power of contemporary browsers has given > rise to quite advanced web applications which have been able to surpass > certain tools inside of the traditional Smalltalk image (hence the topic: > Github). I'm not going to list its features, anyone that isn't familiar can > very easily become familiar with what it can do by trying it out, its free. > > There's been some confusion, probably because of my forming of the question > with poor mapping from the tools that I know to what Pharo/Smalltalk has to > offer... so really, there is the question of source control and sharing code > between teams and developers and library hosting. > > Online services that leverage source control and offer tools like easy > online browsing of repositories/source code as well as the ability for > developers to do pull requests and code review, not to mention forking > repositories and reviving dead code, documenting and bug tracking. > > Besides managing source code, there is the concept of libraries, which > overlaps greatly with source code management, but such repositories need not > have all the tools previously listed, but do need to have a way to allow > developers to quickly find and tap into existing code libraries; to easily > create, share and download these libraries is central such a service. In > this regard I think Monticello and http://www.squeaksource.com/ are the > tools in Smalltalk world that map the most to that concept > (https://rubygems.org/)? (correct me if I'm wrong). > > I understand the image/smalltalk kernel as a self sufficient enclosed world > is why live objects are possible, and that's the beauty of Smalltalk. I see > there is effort to build towards a more open (in the sense of the world wide > web) set of tools to manage code and libraries. I still don't understand why > smalltalkhub.com is trying to be both a library and source code control tool > at the same time. > > I think leveraging tools currently available, and which have a large > user-base is better for allowing new users who come from another environment > -- pretty much everyone that deals with open source web and mobile > application development knows how to use GitHub. But I will stick around and > see how those that know more about the Smalltalk world make their decisions. > I want to see a growing and thriving ST community! > > Traditionally and culturally, at first glance, forgive me if I'm > stereotyping, but the smalltalk world seems to be heavily biased towards > academic and large proprietary enterprise tooling and development > environments. I think this is a reason (among others, from what I've read > around) why ST hasn't picked up steam as the WWW grew up, the developers and > tools were simply not geared toward such an environment. However, while I'm > guessing that most developers in ST are still heavily oriented toward > enterprise platforms, we can all benefit by bringing aboard more developers > and creating a large market and demand for ST developers, and I'm going to > go on a limb here and say that that's not going to happen until we can > integrate with the tools and culture of contemporary web development. Anyone > have opinions on this? > > Perhaps the current tools that I've described aren't the best fit for > Smalltalk, and perhaps I'm still currently limited because of my personal > development culture 'up-bringing'. I would love to get to know what a more > idiomatic toolset can do, as Pharo and the smalltalk environment seems to be > quite powerful as is and has been for a long time, and still is ahead of > many current and more popular languages and tools. > > There are other topics I would like to explore in more detail sometime soon: > > keeping up to date documentation > creating (current) tutorials for beginners to Smalltalk > minimizing fragmentation and across Smalltalk tools & library & interpreters > evaluating tools for development community discussions that are more > accessible and open to newcomers / a larger audience > > I hope I can get better at ST and try to contribute myself to some things > that interest me more... > > Cheers, > > > Victor Stan > > Schedule me: > http://quicklyschedule.quicklyschedule.me/victor > > Add me to your address book - it's easy! > http://contactmonkey.com/victor > > > > On Wed, Mar 20, 2013 at 4:32 PM, stephane ducasse <[hidden email]> > wrote: >> >> thanks Paul >> :) >> we are making progress >> >> > Rails had 468 committers for its 3.2.0 release [1]. Pharo probably had >> > less than a tenth of that between 1.4 and 2.0 and Seaside 3.0 maybe a >> > fifth of Pharo. As Stuart mentioned there is work being done. >> > Smalltalk is the 48th most popular language on github[2] and so there >> > are projects and tooling for interacting with it. On the mailing list >> > archive across all Smalltalk public mailing lists there are ~2200 posts >> > about github[3] discussing various reasons why things are or are not >> > happening. >> > >> > Its not that there's not effort, or it doesn't exist, or isn't >> > considered. Its that its either not there yet, or not going to get >> > there because a better option will come up or along that people in the >> > more-limited-in-number-of-people-than-you're-used-to open source >> > Smalltalk community want to work on more than github integration [4]. >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > Which features of git are you missing? Which of github? >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > [1] http://contributors.rubyonrails.org/releases >> > [2] https://github.com/languages/Smalltalk >> > [3] >> > >> > http://forum.world.st/template/NamlServlet.jtp?macro=search_page&node=1294792&query=github >> > [4] http://www.smalltalkhub.com >> > >> > On 03/19/2013 06:58 PM, Victor Stan wrote: >> >> Why are SmallTalk projects/source code hosted on SS3 Gemstone instead >> >> of >> >> Git/GitHub? >> >> >> >> I'm coming to SmallTalk from the world of web development with open >> >> source software, primarily Rails, and I'm very familiar with the >> >> amazing >> >> social network/source code repository that is GitHub. It is truly an >> >> industry defining entity, so many open source projects have been able >> >> to >> >> harness the ease of use, features and community around Git and GitHub. >> >> >> >> At the moment, as I'm trying to learn more about SmallTalk and Pharo >> >> especially, (my primary interest in Pharo is to use it as a web >> >> development platform), I am a bit shocked, if I may be frank, at the >> >> tooling used for source code and open source project management. I see >> >> that the popular trend now is to move to SS3/Gemstone, and I appreciate >> >> anyone that helps open source development/projects, but I can't see how >> >> they can even come close to the functionality of GitHub for source code >> >> hosting and OS project management, so I pose the question: is there an >> >> effort, why or why not, to start integrating with GitHub and Git for >> >> source code management? >> >> >> >> I know that historical precent and the tools built into Pharo/SmallTalk >> >> images, like Monticello are predecessors to GUI source control, but >> >> given the leaps that Git has managed to take, in distributed source >> >> code >> >> management, how does the existing SmallTalk community feel about it's >> >> current tooling in this regard? >> >> >> >> Thanks, >> >> >> >> Victor Stan >> >> >> >> Schedule me: >> >> http://quicklyschedule.quicklyschedule.me/victor >> >> >> >> Add me to your address book - it's easy! >> >> http://contactmonkey.com/victor >> >> >> > >> > >> >> > |
Re: Why are SmallTalk projects/source code hosted on SS3 Gemstone instead of Git?
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In reply to this post by Victor
Hi,
good write up. You've picked up some essential things pretty quick :) Comments inline! Am 22.03.2013 um 03:09 schrieb Victor Stan <[hidden email]>: The stereotype about being academicly biased is ok but not quite accurate. If you encounter the smalltalk world from pharo it might look like that. But this is rather pharo specific. If you look at cincom smalltalk the impression will be different. As others mentioned the discussion about success occurrs regularly on this and other mailing lists. In your inquiry for opinion you placed some assumptions I cannot share. I cannot agree that "pick up the steam", "grow" "creating a large market" is something good per se. These categories have no value in itself. What do we get for having that kind of success? I do not know how to create success but I know that following these goals would help let smalltalk die. I might ask you why you encounter smalltalk. To learn something new/different? How can you learn something new/different if you think it should do the same as everyone else does? If smalltalk wouldn't be that reluctant it would have e.g. picked about file based source code long ago. And that would have turned it much worse. On the contrary you are quite right that smalltalk suffers from its islandish being. But giving up being on an island should be done carefully in order not to drown in the mainstream. Norbert
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Re: Why are SmallTalk projects/source code hosted on SS3 Gemstone instead of Git?
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On 22 March 2013 10:54, Norbert Hartl <[hidden email]> wrote:
> Hi, > > good write up. You've picked up some essential things pretty quick :) > Comments inline! > > Am 22.03.2013 um 03:09 schrieb Victor Stan <[hidden email]>: > > Thank you all for your responses, I appreciate all the good feedback around > this topic. > > Rather than try to address individual replies in their respective email > responses, I will summary what I learned and what my thoughts are. > > The trend now is to use http://smalltalkhub.com/ which is a bit like a > combination of GitHub (source control) and https://rubygems.org/ (library > repository). > > There are historical precedents for why things are the way they are now: > Monticello was really good when it came out and still a fairly useful tool, > the nature of Smalltalk images is that all the tools tend to be inside of > the image and thus there is little incentive to focus on external tools. I > think the nature of the web and the power of contemporary browsers has given > rise to quite advanced web applications which have been able to surpass > certain tools inside of the traditional Smalltalk image (hence the topic: > Github). I'm not going to list its features, anyone that isn't familiar can > very easily become familiar with what it can do by trying it out, its free. > > There's been some confusion, probably because of my forming of the question > with poor mapping from the tools that I know to what Pharo/Smalltalk has to > offer... so really, there is the question of source control and sharing code > between teams and developers and library hosting. > > Online services that leverage source control and offer tools like easy > online browsing of repositories/source code as well as the ability for > developers to do pull requests and code review, not to mention forking > repositories and reviving dead code, documenting and bug tracking. > > Besides managing source code, there is the concept of libraries, which > overlaps greatly with source code management, but such repositories need not > have all the tools previously listed, but do need to have a way to allow > developers to quickly find and tap into existing code libraries; to easily > create, share and download these libraries is central such a service. In > this regard I think Monticello and http://www.squeaksource.com/ are the > tools in Smalltalk world that map the most to that concept > (https://rubygems.org/)? (correct me if I'm wrong). > > I understand the image/smalltalk kernel as a self sufficient enclosed world > is why live objects are possible, and that's the beauty of Smalltalk. I see > there is effort to build towards a more open (in the sense of the world wide > web) set of tools to manage code and libraries. I still don't understand why > smalltalkhub.com is trying to be both a library and source code control tool > at the same time. > > I think leveraging tools currently available, and which have a large > user-base is better for allowing new users who come from another environment > -- pretty much everyone that deals with open source web and mobile > application development knows how to use GitHub. But I will stick around and > see how those that know more about the Smalltalk world make their decisions. > I want to see a growing and thriving ST community! > > Traditionally and culturally, at first glance, forgive me if I'm > stereotyping, but the smalltalk world seems to be heavily biased towards > academic and large proprietary enterprise tooling and development > environments. I think this is a reason (among others, from what I've read > around) why ST hasn't picked up steam as the WWW grew up, the developers and > tools were simply not geared toward such an environment. However, while I'm > guessing that most developers in ST are still heavily oriented toward > enterprise platforms, we can all benefit by bringing aboard more developers > and creating a large market and demand for ST developers, and I'm going to > go on a limb here and say that that's not going to happen until we can > integrate with the tools and culture of contemporary web development. Anyone > have opinions on this? > > The stereotype about being academicly biased is ok but not quite accurate. > If you encounter the smalltalk world from pharo it might look like that. But > this is rather pharo specific. If you look at cincom smalltalk the > impression will be different. > > As others mentioned the discussion about success occurrs regularly on this > and other mailing lists. > > In your inquiry for opinion you placed some assumptions I cannot share. I > cannot agree that "pick up the steam", "grow" "creating a large market" is > something good per se. These categories have no value in itself. What do we > get for having that kind of success? I do not know how to create success but > I know that following these goals would help let smalltalk die. > +1 i think we should focus on improving experience for community (the people who using pharo and know how to make it better), and for people who would like to use it, but missing some key functionality. In any case, this will distill into a list of tasks/goals with clear outcome. > I might ask you why you encounter smalltalk. To learn something > new/different? How can you learn something new/different if you think it > should do the same as everyone else does? If smalltalk wouldn't be that > reluctant it would have e.g. picked about file based source code long ago. > And that would have turned it much worse. On the contrary you are quite > right that smalltalk suffers from its islandish being. But giving up being > on an island should be done carefully in order not to drown in the > mainstream. i would say "to not be washed away". > > Norbert > -- Best regards, Igor Stasenko. |
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In reply to this post by Yanni Chiu
Yanni Chiu wrote:
> On 21/03/13 10:09 PM, Victor Stan wrote: >> >> Traditionally and culturally, at first glance, forgive me if I'm >> stereotyping, but the smalltalk world seems to be heavily biased towards >> academic and large proprietary enterprise tooling and development >> environments. I think this is a reason (among others, from what I've >> read around) why ST hasn't picked up steam as the WWW grew up, the >> developers and tools were simply not geared toward such an environment. > > The "why did Smalltalk not take off" debate is a regular occurrence on > Smalltalk discussion forums. > > There used to be Smalltalk implementations that targeted smaller > companies. Digitalk Smalltalk was one of these. Unfortunately, at the > critical WWW breakout moment, Digitalk was bought by ParcPlace, and > eventually killed. Perhaps an independent Digitalk could have adapted > as you would have expected. You may find [1] an interesting historical perspective. [1] http://stackoverflow.com/questions/711140/why-isnt-smalltalk-popular?page=2&tab=votes#tab-top -ben |
Re: Why are SmallTalk projects/source code hosted on SS3 Gemstone instead of Git?
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In reply to this post by stephane ducasse
LOL.
> Smalltalk is the 48th most popular language on github[2] and so there So productive, so old/mature, and yet, so lonely. -Cam |
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In reply to this post by Yanni Chiu
I have not had the chance to check out the local ST community, but I think I might soon :) Victor Stan Schedule me: http://quicklyschedule.quicklyschedule.me/victor Add me to your address book - it's easy! http://contactmonkey.com/victor On Thu, Mar 21, 2013 at 11:34 PM, Yanni Chiu <[hidden email]> wrote:
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Re: Why are SmallTalk projects/source code hosted on SS3 Gemstone instead of Git?
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Administrator
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In reply to this post by philippeback
It seems to me that OO only appears as hard as it does after years of being brainwashed by a clueless academic system that pushes C, C++, and Java. The small children at PARC didn't seem to have a problem with OO ;)
Cheers,
Sean |
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