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sports

Minor League Football?

May 11, 2012 8:10:59.000

The USFL is back, and it looks like they intend to run it as a minor league. Maybe if it takes off, colleges could get away from football and back to, you know, academics....

posted by James Robertson

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ST 4U 231: Code Completion in VA 8.5.1

May 11, 2012 9:13:01.185

Today's Smalltalk 4 You looks at the upgrades to code completion in VA Smalltalk 8.5.1. 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:

Code Completion.

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 go back to code completion in VA Smalltalk - there have been a lot of improvements in the 8.5.1 release. When the video from STIC 2012 is released (check the conference pages regularly), you should definitely watch it. In the meantime, let's open up a workspace and have a look. Notice that we've defined our variables as temps; the code completion support relies on having a valid compilation environment. If you don't have that, you won't see suggestions:

Code Completion

One of the niftier new things is camel case support. Try typing in RWS - you should see suggestions immediately, although you can always hit ctrl-space to get them:

camel case

The new support is smart enough to split on the case changes, and match RWS to ReadWriteStream. What's really nice is that it also works for keyword messages, splitting both on case and colons. Try creating an OrderedCollection and then entering aai:

camel case

Notice that it matched for messages in the collection hierarchy - the support takes note of the compilation environment, and uses it to give you better answers.

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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posted by James Robertson

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IM 77: History of Smalltalk, Part 2

May 13, 2012 11:32:09.212

Welcome to episode 77 of Independent Misinterpretations - a Smalltalk and dynamic language oriented podcast with James Robertson and David Buck.

This week Dave and I wrap up our discussion of Smalltalk history - a topic Dave has been doing some research on lately. Dave recommends this PDF if you want to look into this history yourself. Yu can find part 1 of this discussion here.

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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posted by James Robertson

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IM 77: History of Smalltalk, Part 2 (AAC)

May 13, 2012 11:35:38.719

Welcome to episode 77 of Independent Misinterpretations - a Smalltalk and dynamic language oriented podcast with James Robertson and David Buck.

This week Dave and I wrap up our discussion of Smalltalk history - a topic Dave has been doing some research on lately. Dave recommends this PDF if you want to look into this history yourself. Yu can find part 1 of this discussion here.

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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[im77.m4a ( Size: 22741051 )]

posted by James Robertson

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smalltalk

Startup Loader for Pharo

May 13, 2012 17:38:40.000

Need to load a bunch of stuff into a new Pharo image before you get to work? Mariano has some tools for that.

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posted by James Robertson

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ST 4U 232: StartupLoader in Pharo

May 14, 2012 11:03:59.847

Today's Smalltalk 4 You looks at the StartupLoader in Pharo - this is all based on this post from Mariano Martinez Peck. 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:

Startup

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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js4u

JS 4U 157: The first() Function in JQuery

May 15, 2012 9:44:28.249

Javascript 4 U

Today's Javascript 4 You looks at the first() 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:

first()

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 and Fluentd

May 15, 2012 9:47:45.000

There's another logging framework available for Smalltalk, but this one isn't standalone - it's an interface to Fluentd:

Nagare is designed to be simple and scalable. Contrary to other logging frameworks which provide rich set of log output methods (file, socket, DB, etc.), Nagare just connects to fluentd (http://fluentd.org). And Fluentd does the various log processing jobs.

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posted by James Robertson

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smalltalk

Memoization for Smalltalk

May 15, 2012 13:47:30.000

Travis talks sorting n VisualWorks:

The core default sort algorithm in VisualWorks is hybridization of quicksort and a insertion sort. The implications for this, is that this somewhat expensive toolListDisplayString method may be called repeatedly for some objects. That means redundant CPU cycles. A common solution to this kind of problem is memoization. Memoization basically is a fancy word which means "cache the results of your computation function, so you only evaluate the function once for each unique input and just look up the cached result for subsequent calls."

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posted by James Robertson

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smalltalk

Give Smalltalk a Try

May 15, 2012 17:01:32.000

One thing about Smalltalk - it will definitely make you think.

posted by James Robertson

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smalltalk

Spoon weekend 19 May 2012

May 15, 2012 20:02:27.000

Craig Latta would like to hear from you about Spoon.

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posted by James Robertson

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smalltalk

ESUG 2012 Registration Opens

May 16, 2012 9:01:06.548

I saw this on the ESUG mailing list:

I am pleased to announce that registration for the 20th ESUG Conference in Ghent, Belgium is now open!
To register, please proceed to the website or go directly to the accomodations page.
Important: do not forget to book your accomodation directly at one of the hotels in Ghent before June30th!

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posted by James Robertson

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st4u

ST 4U 233: Startup Options for VisualWorks

May 16, 2012 10:25:22.175

Today's Smalltalk 4 You looks at some of the startup options for VisualWorks (most of which also apply to ObjectStudio now). 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:

startup

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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JS 4U 158: Selecting the first element using JQuery

May 17, 2012 9:37:35.493

Javascript 4 U

Today's Javascript 4 You looks at the how to select the first of a set of matching elements 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:

Selecting First

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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ST 4U 234: ENVY Config Maps

May 18, 2012 7:02:22.578

Today's Smalltalk 4 You looks at the ENVY config map browser - what each part shows, and how you would use the various aspects. 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:

Config Maps.

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 brief tour of the Configuration Map browser in VA Smalltalk. For any VA project, it's a tool you'll get very familiar with; it's where you set up all of the loading information for your project. Take a look at the screen capture below:

Config Maps

The list on the left is all of the defined maps in the library. Since your image must be connected to a library to work, this list will grow over time. There are two panes to the right, labeled "Editions and Versions", and "Applications". Any map has a number of versions (anything not versioned will be an open edition - we'll discuss those soon). The list of Applications tells us which Applications make up the config map, and what the load order for them is.

The lower left pane, "Config Expressions" requires some explanation. Generally, you leave this blank, or put in the simple statement "true". However, any Smalltalk expression that answers a boolean could go here. Say you wanted to define a Config Map that should only load on Unix/Linux systems; you might want something like this:


(System respondsTo: #subsystemType:) 
    and: [(System subsystemType: 'CFS') = 'POSIX']

The next pane to the right contains a listing (in order) of any pre-requisite maps - those that need to load before your map can be loaded. One of the nicer things about Envy is that you can edit all of this information without actually loading the map; if you make a mistake that prevents the map from loading, you can some back here and address it.

The last pane on the bottom is for comments - it's often used for license information, or copyright notices. It's free form, and can contain any information you feel is relevant.

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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