[squeak-dev] Re: need help building one-click squeak app for Windows

last month Andreas wrote:
>I understand that. I'm just wondering how you even begin to explain to
>someone who is used to Windows apps that when they are saving the image
>they're really doing a persistent modification of (what they think of
>as) the "app".

I dont see this as a problem. There are app's built with Excel or MSAccess
in the windows world and if you modify and save them you will persist their
current state. Maybe exotic even on windows but not unknown.

>Would you mind writing this up in html form and put it somewhere so that
>I can link it from squeakvm.org? (or alternatively just send me an html
>version and I'll put it there)

OK, its at least on my todo list now. I will send it to you as soon
as I have one.

>$LOCALAPPDATA is a *terrible* location if you need
>people to find it. Put it under My Documents\<app name> instead.
>This is a location that people can find easily

At least it is safe for vista and it's just a default.
Maybe we have to separate the image from the VM in the install then.
Have to think about it.

>Well, what do I know ;-) I haven't looked at Pharo and probably won't
>until 1.0 is out (btw, did I miss the announcement? I thought that was
>supposed to happen a couple of months ago). In the mean time I very much
>enjoy Cuis.

The whole discussion "Squeak vs. Pharo vs. Cuis vs. ..." is annoying.

Actually Pharo is a fork since Squeak was (not yet) able to answer
the question for a cleaned up version without all the morphic/toy/
classroom stuff removed and with a nice UI right from the startup
of the image. Also the process to contribute is not the best but
is easy and clear.

I like Pharo since this gap is now filled and if it attracts more people
to Smalltalk the better it is. It is easy to contribute to it as it was
in the good old "send the changeset to the list for harvesting" days in
Squeak.

That does not mean that Squeak will die but I'm pretty sure that
both will drift apart since they have different goals.
If one wants to play with media and stuff you can point to Squeak,
if someone wants to do commercial stuff with seaside he may use
Pharo. Maybe both will reunite in the future ... but from the
current discussion I can not see that.

But I totally dislike statements about Pharo people like
"arogant twats" (see [1]) since many of them are part of both
communities. Squeak can profit from Pharo and vice versa.  

This whole community lives from it's diversity. Have a look at
Etoys, Scratch, Sophie, Croquet, JSqueak, SqueakNOS ...
 
I also like Cuis but I fear that it may fade away due to the lack of
time when it does not get widely accepted.
But this is just my impression. Maybe it can become the base for a
better Squeak...

So who knows what will happen ... only time will tell.

The REALLY HOT topic I currently see is how to attract people so they
can participate and we ALL can move forward.
That's the priority since this is a problem in any part of the
broader Smalltalk community (from core squeak to etoys, up to Pharo).

>I think it's okay if we assume that even the beginning Squeak
>developer needs a bit more understanding than what VisualBasic would
>expect from its user base.

Yes - but Smalltalk is known for its productivity and ease of use.
So we should make it easy accessible even when that
means to act like a typical windows app/programming language in the
first place. People have expectations and the first impression counts.
Otherwise they will throw it away and never return.

Keep on talking small
Torsten

[1] http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/pipermail/release/2009-July/000091.html



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Torsten Bergmann wrote:
> last month Andreas wrote:
>> Would you mind writing this up in html form and put it somewhere so that
>> I can link it from squeakvm.org? (or alternatively just send me an html
>> version and I'll put it there)
>
> OK, its at least on my todo list now. I will send it to you as soon
> as I have one.

Thanks, that'll be hugely helpful.

>> $LOCALAPPDATA is a *terrible* location if you need
>> people to find it. Put it under My Documents\<app name> instead.
>> This is a location that people can find easily
>
> At least it is safe for vista and it's just a default.
> Maybe we have to separate the image from the VM in the install then.
> Have to think about it.

One thing that one could do (and would be very cool) is to write a
little shell extension that presents only the image files in a directory
and link that to the start menu. In this case the installer would
register this extension and when you save an image in that location it
would show up in the Windows start menu. In other words, you'd go to
Start>>All Programs>>Squeak>>Images and then have a menu full of images
in this location. Any takers?

(alternatively, a poor man's approach to this would be to add a "Browse
Images" link to the startup menu that just takes you to that location)

> The whole discussion "Squeak vs. Pharo vs. Cuis vs. ..." is annoying.

Point taken.

> But I totally dislike statements about Pharo people like
> "arogant twats" (see [1]) since many of them are part of both
> communities. Squeak can profit from Pharo and vice versa.

Agreed. Statements like these are not acceptable. But it really does go
both ways, you know. Someone should let Mr. Pharo know that learning how
to express oneself like an adult goes a long, long way in creating some
goodwill. Just go to the first post of that "just a little note" thread
which spilled over here to see what I mean. From my perspective
mud-slinging like that ("all the mails in Squeak-dev [...] about us been
assholes, destructors") is every bit as unacceptable and damaging and
it's not coming from some random member of that community but rather all
the way from the top. So let's *all* try to avoid insults in particular
those of us who are in exposed positions in our respective communities.
Thank you for listening ;-)

> I also like Cuis but I fear that it may fade away due to the lack of
> time when it does not get widely accepted.
> But this is just my impression. Maybe it can become the base for a
> better Squeak...

My hope is to fully integrate it. It's one of the smallest, definitely
the fastest, and probably the best structured kernel that have been
built. Juan spent a lot of time on it and it shows. If we could use that
  (or some derivative/merger) as the basis for a future release we'd
move a major step forward.

> The REALLY HOT topic I currently see is how to attract people so they
> can participate and we ALL can move forward.

So true. A killer app, or some other highly "in" topic. We should use
images for cloud computing; this would be such an obvious thing to do...

> Yes - but Smalltalk is known for its productivity and ease of use.
> So we should make it easy accessible even when that
> means to act like a typical windows app/programming language in the
> first place. People have expectations and the first impression counts.

You won't see me argue with that!

Cheers,
   - Andreas

Andreas Raab wrote:
I would love to see that happen. I'm willing to help!

Cheers,
Juan Vuletich