Smalltalk with James Robertson

I was asked how to store a block from a string this morning, and store the result in an input field. It's actually pretty simple:

string := '[:a | a + 1]'.
block := Compiler evaluate: string.
block value: 10

Now, if you put that behind an input field in a UI, you would want to be extremely careful - you wouldn't want someone typing, say,

[Object := nil].

and just executing the result at some point. To go all Spiderman, "With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility" :)

Technorati Tags: compiler

The call for contributors - papers and talks - for ESUG 2010 in Barcelona has started. So go ahead - get your stuff together, it'll be a great show!

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Today's Smalltalk Daily looks at an upcomoing feature of ObjectStudio - workspace variables. You can download the zip file with the supporting code here. Click on the viewer below to watch it now:

You can download the video directly here. If you like this kind of video, why not subscribe to "Smalltalk Daily"?

Technorati Tags: video, objectstudio, workspace variables

Bernat Romagoas has produced a nifty looking Chinese language tutor using Seaside. Subscribe to his blog; it's all about Seaside :)

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Julian Fitzell will be presenting Seaside at Epicenter in Dublin, Ireland on June 10. His talk is at 11 AM; details may be found here.

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Today's Smalltalk Daily looks at how to set the selection in a ComboBox (VisualWorks) programmatically - click on the viewer below to watch it now:

You can download the video directly here. If you like this kind of video, why not subscribe to "Smalltalk Daily"?

Technorati Tags: combobox, visualworks

Today's Smalltalk Daily looks at how to open a workspace with your own text in it. To see the code in a Smalltalk environment, browse the class side examples in Workbook - click on the viewer below to watch it now:

You can download the video directly here. If you like this kind of video, why not subscribe to "Smalltalk Daily"?

Technorati Tags: workbook, workspace

Michael has written another post about Xtreams - this time, on transferring data between images:

I mentioned in my last blog post about Xtreams that I wanted to devise a way of sending object messages between images while also allowing file transfers and other large data transfers to happen without interruption. This is not something that Opentalk has typically been good at - if you have a giant collection of data and you start returning it on your connection, that connection is locked up until you're done. I've started a new Xtreams-Xperiments addition which I'm calling Shared Substreams.

Read the rest - it's interesting stuff.

Technorati Tags: streams, xtreams

Looks like the 3.2 release of GST is out - follow the link for details

Technorati Tags: gst, gnu smalltalk

This week's podcast is part one of our 2 part podcast with John Maloney, one of the members of the Scratch project at MIT, and John Mcintosh, the long time Smalltalker who's been developing the Squeak port to the iPod/iPhone/iPad. Recently, John's port ran into issues with Apple, and Scratch has been removed from the app store. As you'll find out in the podcast, that's not due to the new language restrictions - although those do raise a different bar. In any event, it was a fun podcast, and we learned a lot about Scratch, which is a great environment for teachin kids about software.

To listen now, you can either download the mp3 edition, or the AAC edition. The AAC edition comes with chapter markers. You can subscribe to either edition of the podcast directly in iTunes; just search for Smalltalk and look in the Podcast results. You can subscribe to the mp3 edition directly using this feed, or the AAC edition using this feed using any podcatching software. Starting with Episode 186, you can also download the podcast in ogg format.

To listen immediately, use the player below:

If you like the music we use, please visit Josh Woodward's site. We use the song Effortless for our intro/outro music. I'm sure he'd appreciate your support!

If you have feedback, send it to smalltalkpodcasts@cincom.com - or visit us on Facebook or Ning - you can vote for the Podcast Alley, and subscribe on iTunes. If you enjoy the podcast, pass the word - we would love to have more people hear about Smalltalk!

Technorati Tags: scratch, squeak, iPad, apple