Today's Smalltalk 4 You takes an overview of the benchmarking tools in VA Smalltalk. If you don't know what to load, get started here. If you have trouble viewing it here in the browser, you can also navigate directly to YouTube. To watch now, click on the image below:
If you have trouble viewing that directly, you can click here to download the video directly. If you need the video in a Windows Media format, then download that here.
You can also watch it on YouTube:
Today we'll run the benchmarking tools in VA Smalltalk and see what they do. If you don't know what to load, get started here.
Following on from last time, create a small benchmark test, and then click the "run" button in the tool:
You should see something like what's above. There are a number of view/benchmark options to explore - we'll get to those next time
Need more help? There's a screencast for other topics like this which you may want to watch. Questions? Try the "Chat with James" Google gadget over in the sidebar.
Today's Smalltalk 4 You looks a little deeper at the help system in Pharo - you can extend it easily to include your own help for your own projects. If you have trouble viewing it here in the browser, you can also navigate directly to YouTube. To watch now, click on the image below:
If you have trouble viewing that directly, you can click here to download the video directly. If you need the video in a Windows Media format, then download that here.
Today's Smalltalk 4 You starts looking at the benchmarking tools available in VA Smalltalk. If you have trouble viewing it here in the browser, you can also navigate directly to YouTube. To watch now, click on the image below:
If you have trouble viewing that directly, you can click here to download the video directly. If you need the video in a Windows Media format, then download that here.
You can also watch it on YouTube:
Today we'll start taking a look at the benchmarking tools available in VA Smalltalk. First, we'll need to load the relevant feature:
Next, we'll go to the "Tools" menu in the launcher, and pick "Open Benchmark Workshop".
THe tool has a code pane on the left, used to enter the code you want to benchmark. However, that doesn't operate the way you might expect - First, enter the code you want into the text area:
Now, right click and select the "Save" option in the menu. You'll be warned about creating a scratch edition of an application; just ignore that:
Once you've done that, the new benchmark is available from the drop down list at the top of the tool:
At this point, we can run any of the saved tests. We'll get to that in the next screencast.
Need more help? There's a screencast for other topics like this which you may want to watch. Questions? Try the "Chat with James" Google gadget over in the sidebar.
Today's Smalltalk 4 You looks at the standard development process using VA Smalltalk and ENVY. If you have trouble viewing it here in the browser, you can also navigate directly to YouTube. To watch now, click on the image below:
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There's a nice little feature in VA stashed away on the "Options" menu of the launcher - recently visited methods. This is something that I'd really like to see in the tools I use in my day to day consulting work, because I keep going back to the same code, but I often can't quite remember what it is that I'm looking for - this feature helps a lot with that problem.
As you can see below, the last few classes and methods I visited had to do with the screencasts I did on file handling in VA - and here they are, listed right where we can easily find them:
Need more help? There's a screencast for other topics like this which you may want to watch. Questions? Try the "Chat with James" Google gadget over in the sidebar.
Today's Smalltalk 4 You looks at the help system that is included in Pharo. If you have trouble viewing it here in the browser, you can also navigate directly to YouTube. To watch now, click on the image below:
If you have trouble viewing that directly, you can click here to download the video directly. If you need the video in a Windows Media format, then download that here.
Today's Smalltalk 4 You looks at creating a clone of your existing ENVY repository. Since all of your code resides in that repositry, backing up a copy periodically is a really good idea. If you have trouble viewing it here in the browser, you can also navigate directly to YouTube. To watch now, click on the image below:
If you have trouble viewing that directly, you can click here to download the video directly. If you need the video in a Windows Media format, then download that here.
You can also watch it on YouTube:
The good thing about ENVY Development in VA Smalltalk is that ENVY tracks everything - you really can't lose code that you develop, even when you don't formally release it. On the other hand, you do have a single point of failure - the repository itself. Fortunately, it's easy to back up, both within VA and without. Outside, just backup the file (typically manager.dat in the "manager" directory under your VA installation). Within VA, go to the Tools menu:
What that option does is create a new library and reconnect your image to the new library - after which you can archive the original. The cloning can take awhile (especially if the file is large). When it's finished, you'll get promoted for the new repository size. Always select 16 GB:
Finally, VA connects to the new library and you're ready to get back to work:
Need more help? There's a screencast for other topics like this which you may want to watch. Questions? Try the "Chat with James" Google gadget over in the sidebar.
Today's Smalltalk 4 You looks at a nifty little feature of VA Smalltalk - the menu options that make it easy to inspect arbitrary objects in VA. If you have trouble viewing it here in the browser, you can also navigate directly to YouTube. To watch now, click on the image below:
If you have trouble viewing that directly, you can click here to download the video directly. If you need the video in a Windows Media format, then download that here.
You can also watch it on YouTube:
During Smalltalk development, it's quite common to want to inspect arbitrary objects - and sometimes, it's not that easy to "dig into" the right level of the application for that. Fortunately, tools to deal with that are right in the VA environment. Take a look at the "Options" menu in the launcher:
Notice the "Delay" option - if you want to inspect a widget (one of the options), you can set a countdown to give yourself time to get the cursor to it. Try that, and move the mouse to the toolbar for the launcher:
This is a really useful thing - where I work, using VisualWorks, we've built similar tools into the environment. In VA, they are already there.
Need more help? There's a screencast for other topics like this which you may want to watch. Questions? Try the "Chat with James" Google gadget over in the sidebar.
Today's Smalltalk 4 You looks at some the basic tools in ObjectStudio. Since OS is built on top of VisualWorks, some of those tools are VW tools, and someof them are unique to OS. If you have trouble viewing it here in the browser, you can also navigate directly to YouTube. To watch now, click on the image below:
If you have trouble viewing that directly, you can click here to download the video directly. If you need the video in a Windows Media format, then download that here.
Today's Smalltalk 4 You looks at integer math in Smalltalk - noting that you don't ever need to worry (outside of database issues, of course) about the small/large integer divide. If you have trouble viewing it here in the browser, you can also navigate directly to YouTube. To watch now, click on the image below:
If you have trouble viewing that directly, you can click here to download the video directly. If you need the video in a Windows Media format, then download that here.
You can also watch it on YouTube:
Today we'll look at how integer math works in Smalltalk - specifically, the fact that you don't ever need to worry about "big ints". As a simple example, let's calculate a small factorial 10.
Now let's try something big, and add a small number to it:
1000 factorial + 1
Display the result gives you a LargeInteger object - demonstrating that you simply do not need to worry about this level of "type" information in Smalltalk - it's handled for you:
Need more help? There's a screencast for other topics like this which you may want to watch. Questions? Try the "Chat with James" Google gadget over in the sidebar.
Today's Smalltalk 4 You looks at customizing the seeds used in random number generation in VA Smalltalk. If you have trouble viewing it here in the browser, you can also navigate directly to YouTube. To watch now, click on the image below:
If you have trouble viewing that directly, you can click here to download the video directly. If you need the video in a Windows Media format, then download that here.
You can also watch it on YouTube:
Today we'll look at customizing the seeds used in random number generation by class EsRandom in VA Smalltalk. First, have a look at the #new method:
new
"Use linear congruential generator, with a shuffling array.
Reference: Numerical Recipes in C, The Art of Scientific Computing
Press et al., Cambridge University Press 1990, pp. 211, 212"
| randomStream |
randomStream := super new.
randomStream
seed2: Time millisecondClockValue asFloat;
basicNext;
shuffleArray: (Array new: randomStream shuffleSize).
1 to: randomStream shuffleSize do: [ :index |
randomStream shuffleArray at: index put: randomStream basicNext].
randomStream seed1: randomStream seed2.
^randomStream
Notice how the seeds are set? That's likely good enough for most uses, but if you wanted to customize, all you need to do is replace those seeds - maybe like the following:
That will work fine - try it out for yourself. That's really all there is to it!
Need more help? There's a screencast for other topics like this which you may want to watch. Questions? Try the "Chat with James" Google gadget over in the sidebar.
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