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js4u

JS 4U 129: Using off()

February 7, 2012 8:23:22.513

Javascript 4 U

Today's Javascript 4 You looks at the off() function in JQuery. If you have trouble viewing it here in the browser, you can also navigate directly to YouTube.

Join the Facebook Group to discuss the tutorials. You can view the archives here.

To watch now, click on the image below:

off()

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:

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ST 4U 191: Generating Accessors in VA Smalltalk

February 8, 2012 8:33:01.414

Today's Smalltalk 4 You looks at generating accessors with the VA Smalltalk toolset. 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:

Accessors.

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 take a look at something you need to do all the time in Smalltalk - generate accessor methods. In VA Smalltalk, you'll want to switch to the Trailblazer browsers to do that (see this tutorial for more on that). To start with, select your class in the browser, and then pop up the context menu - pick Show>>Instance Variables:

Show Instance Variables

Next, select one of the variables, and use the context menu again:

Generate Accessors

For each one selected, you'll get prompted for the name of the argument for the setter method:

Setter

And that's it - you now have accessing methods:

Accessors

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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Smalltalk at FosDem

February 8, 2012 14:22:44.000

Via Torsten comes news from FosDem - a report, presentation, and photos.

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posted by James Robertson

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development

Flash Loses

February 8, 2012 16:26:56.000

Looks like Flash is over - Google has bailed on it, and - more importantly - so has Adobe:

Adobe will continue to work on their Flash platform, but mostly as it relates to their AIR technology. For interactive and immersive web content the company is focusing their efforts on HTML5. That should make things pretty clear: there won’t be Flash in Chrome for Android. Sorry, folks.

That makes the "glaring hole" on IOS into more of a fading issue....

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posted by James Robertson

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JS 4U 130: Using off(), part 2

February 9, 2012 7:46:41.297

Javascript 4 U

Today's Javascript 4 You continues looking at the JQuery off() function. If you have trouble viewing it here in the browser, you can also navigate directly to YouTube.

Join the Facebook Group to discuss the tutorials. You can view the archives here.

To watch now, click on the image below:

off()

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:

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posted by James Robertson

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Readability is Key

February 10, 2012 7:44:50.000

The fact that even bad Smalltalk "reads" fairly well is probably the thing I like best about it. The project I'm on now has the normal share of bad objects (any large project will have them) - but even the bad code can still be parsed by the mark one eyeball better than just about anything else out there. As David Nolen puts it:

Smalltalk has so very few concepts - it's truly stunning. There's nothing more powerful in aiding readability than a small core set of concepts. In this sense I think Smalltalk continues to be one of the few languages to get anywhere near LISP. Most languages these days are just an abomination of features trapped inside of a compiler.

The way I like to explain that to people is this: The entire syntax of Smalltalk can fit on an index card. How many pages does it take to explain the syntax of, say, Java?

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posted by James Robertson

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ST 4U 192: Http Get in VA Smalltalk

February 10, 2012 12:20:39.339

Today's Smalltalk 4 You looks at client level HTTP (specifically, get) 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:

HTTP Get.

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 take a look at doing HTTP queries in VA Smalltalk. To get started, you'll need to load the SST (server Smalltalk) packages for HTTP:

Load HTTP Support

All we'll be looking at today is the client side of HTTP, but you need to server package to get that in the image. Once you do that, take a look at class SstHttpClient:

Http Client

A quick look at the APIs makes it appear that all you need to do is create an instance and start using #get:, but it's a bit more involved than that:

Create a client and query

Here's the code:


"set up a client for http requests and execute a request"
client := (SstHttpClient forTransportScheme: 'http') startUp.


That sets up a client for usage. Notice that we needed to specify http (you could also specify https - we'll get into things like proxy servers in the future). next, you issue the request. Once you've "started" the client, you can continue to issue requests:


response := client get: 'http://www.yahoo.com'.

if you inspect the result, you'll see the full response object:

HTTP Response

To get the content, simply send #asString to that piece of the response.

Finally, when you are finished with the client, shut it down:


client shutDown.

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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development

Usability

February 12, 2012 10:47:05.488

Dave Winer makes an excellent point about usability:

They're always moving stuff around in software like this. This is a lesson every generation of developers seems to have to re-learn. Little things like this break users. So what. Once you have competition and look into why people switch, you'll find that "it just works" or "it works like I think" is a highly valued non-feature. It's not something that you can put on a comparison chart. To users it's a subjective thing. It has to do with whether they like you or not. To you however, it's engineering. This feeling is created from hundreds of little subjectives they don't even see, that Ebert would totally understand. In film it's called suspension of disbelief . We don't yet have a name for this in software.

He flared that off a complaint by Roger Ebert about changes to Twitter; it could just as easily have flared off of a bazillion useless changes Facebook has made over the years, or the atrocities Microsoft has committed with Office. Since they put in the Ribbon, I can't find anything anymore; it's the main reason I switched to the OS X suite. IMHO, Office has become downright user hostile.

posted by James Robertson

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smalltalk

Smalltalk at FosDem

February 12, 2012 16:55:24.000

This sounds like the kind of thing that will help get Smalltalk a bit more notice:

One of my major stumbling blocks with Smalltalk has been general unfamiliarity with the development environment, the workshop was the perfect opportunity to resolve some of this. The structure was to pair one experienced Smalltalker with one noob, and for both to work through a pre-planned exercise with an existing image and application set up.

ESUG and the STIC conferences are useful, but getting Smalltalk into the hands of new users requires some outreach. I'm glad to see that happening.

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posted by James Robertson

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IM 65: Magritte Magic at ESUG 2011

February 12, 2012 19:08:28.689

Welcome to episode 65 of Independent Misinterpretations - a Smalltalk and dynamic language oriented podcast with James Robertson and David Buck.

This week we have another recording from ESUG 2011 - Magritte Magic with Nick Ager and Esteban Lorenzano.

You can subscribe to the podcast in iTunes (or any other podcatching software) using this feed directly or in iTunes with this one.

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. You can also download the podcast in ogg format.

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

If you have feedback, send it to jarober@gmail.com - or visit us on Facebook - you can subscribe in iTunes using this iTunes enabled feed.. If you enjoy the podcast, pass the word - we would love to have more people hear about Smalltalk!

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IM 65: Magritte Magic at ESUG 2011 (AAC)

February 12, 2012 19:09:03.509

Welcome to episode 65 of Independent Misinterpretations - a Smalltalk and dynamic language oriented podcast with James Robertson and David Buck.

This week we have another recording from ESUG 2011 - Magritte Magic with Nick Ager and Esteban Lorenzano.

You can subscribe to the podcast in iTunes (or any other podcatching software) using this feed directly or in iTunes with this one.

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. You can also download the podcast in ogg format.

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

If you have feedback, send it to jarober@gmail.com - or visit us on Facebook - you can subscribe in iTunes using this iTunes enabled feed.. If you enjoy the podcast, pass the word - we would love to have more people hear about Smalltalk!

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skyrim

Thu'umcast 21: Mods, Mods, and More Mods

February 12, 2012 23:29:25.081

Thu'umcast

Welcome to episode 21 of "Thu'umcast" - a podcast where Michael Lucas-Smith, Scott Dirk, Austin Haley, Makahlua and I document our trials and tribulations in Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

There's big news to talk about today - the Skyrim Creation Kit is out, and we decided to have two conversations about it. Today, we talked about the Steam Workshop - the new way to download mods, some of the mods that have shown up there already, and about the really cool mod video that Bethesda put out to show us what kinds of things you can do with the kit. We'll talk about the Creation Kit itself next time, and then we'll get back to the perk trees.

If you liked our work on That Podcast, you'll probably like this. We intend to stay with the same idea - a gameplay podcast. If you don't want spoilers, don't listen - we are going to be talking about how we play the game, and what we ran across as we played.

You can subscribe in iTunes (or any podcatcher) using this feed, or this one for the AAC edition. We'll add the iTunes specific links as soon as they are available. In the meantime, join the Facebook Group and follow us on Twitter. If you play on Steam, join the Steam Group. Like the music? Pay Sbeast a visit, we thank him for letting us use it!

Links to all episodes and other information can be found on the Thu'umcast page.

If you want to download the podcast directly, we've provided it in three formats:

Got feedback? Tweet us!. Enjoy the podcast, and we'll see you in Skyrim!

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skyrimAAC

Thu'umcast 21: Mods, Mods, and More Mods (AAC)

February 12, 2012 23:30:03.851

Thu'umcast

Welcome to episode 21 of "Thu'umcast" - a podcast where Michael Lucas-Smith, Scott Dirk, Austin Haley, Makahlua and I document our trials and tribulations in Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

There's big news to talk about today - the Skyrim Creation Kit is out, and we decided to have two conversations about it. Today, we talked about the Steam Workshop - the new way to download mods, some of the mods that have shown up there already, and about the really cool mod video that Bethesda put out to show us what kinds of things you can do with the kit. We'll talk about the Creation Kit itself next time, and then we'll get back to the perk trees.

If you liked our work on That Podcast, you'll probably like this. We intend to stay with the same idea - a gameplay podcast. If you don't want spoilers, don't listen - we are going to be talking about how we play the game, and what we ran across as we played.

You can subscribe in iTunes (or any podcatcher) using this feed, or this one for the AAC edition. We'll add the iTunes specific links as soon as they are available. In the meantime, join the Facebook Group and follow us on Twitter. If you play on Steam, join the Steam Group. Like the music? Pay Sbeast a visit, we thank him for letting us use it!

Links to all episodes and other information can be found on the Thu'umcast page.

If you want to download the podcast directly, we've provided it in three formats:

Got feedback? Tweet us!. Enjoy the podcast, and we'll see you in Skyrim!

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posted by James Robertson

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st4u

ST 4U 193: Raising Exceptions in Pharo

February 13, 2012 11:13:17.510

Today's Smalltalk 4 You looks at using exceptions (raising them) in Pharo 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:

Exceptions

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:

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posted by James Robertson

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smalltalk

Pharo in France

February 13, 2012 22:14:10.903

There's a two day Pharo Conference coming up in May, in France. You can get details and register here.

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posted by James Robertson

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js4u

JS 4U 131: Smoother Animations I

February 14, 2012 10:49:30.864

Javascript 4 U

Today's Javascript 4 You looks at various approaches to smoother animations, via the examples on the CSS Tricks page. If you have trouble viewing it here in the browser, you can also navigate directly to YouTube.

Join the Facebook Group to discuss the tutorials. You can view the archives here.

To watch now, click on the image below:

smoother animations

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:

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posted by James Robertson

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