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smalltalk

Comparing Seaside and Ruby on Rails

May 7, 2010 18:16:08.786

Over the last few years, there’s been a lot of development effort going into web frameworks - increasingly in non-Java languages. In the early 2000’s, it looked like web development was going to be mostly Java/Java beans based, with a few “fringe” technologies competing at the margins. It didn’t really work out that way though; Java was just too hard to work with for most people. Over time, the web has become dominated by code written in Perl, Python, and Ruby (using Ruby on Rails).

Smalltalk has seen some of that resurgence as well with Seaside. Unlike previous web efforts in Smalltalk, Seaside is open, and works in every single major Smalltalk dialect - and it’s actively supported by the major commercial players (Cincom, Gemstone, Instantiations).

Ruby on Rails has been touted as a simpler route to web development - if you watch this long screencast exploring various web tools, it’s clear that using RoR is much more productive than the other alternatives explored by the screencaster. One thing that screencast didn’t look at was Seaside, which is too bad - because Seaside is optimized for writing Web Applications, and removes a lot of the “housekeeping” you have to do, even in Ruby on Rails. To see that for yourself, take a look at the Seaside version (using Cincom’s WebVelocity) used in that screencast.

Let’s break down some of the advantages Seaside has over Ruby on Rails into a set of bullet points. This isn’t to say that Ruby on Rails is terrible; the large user base argues otherwise. Rather, it’s to point out a few things about Smalltalk and Seaside that users of Ruby on Rails (and other web frameworks) simply may not be aware of:

  • Interactive Development. One of the things RoR is known for is interactive development. Make a change, refresh the browser, try again. Smalltalk has always brought that level of interactivity to development, and Seaside takes it one better - instead of a full reload, you can do exploratory development with partial iterations. Build what you understand, let the application break, and use the Smalltalk debugger. You may not fully “get” that statement without seeing it; here’s a screencast illustrating it.
  • Beyond Active Record. You can use Active Record for database connectivity in both RoR and Seaside, but that only takes you so far. Sometimes (especially with existing data models) you have to go “off the rails”. With RoR, you’re on your own there. With Seaside, you have the full power of Glorp - an open source object/relational mapper that is available across all the major Smalltalk dialects.
  • Speed. While Ruby is highly productive (for the same reasons that Smalltalk is), it’s not fast. Smalltalk, on the other hand, has been under active development for over 3 decades. The virtual machine technology behind Smalltalk is fast, and second to none in the field.
  • Connected to the Enterprise. Need to deal with enterprise libraries using industry standards like WS*? Smalltalk gets you access to the enterprise - and full support from commercial vendors. When you really need a fix now, that means you can get a real person on the phone.
  • Mature Development Tools and Libraries. Smalltalk has been around for over three decades - the class libraries supporting it are tested and stable, and the development tools are world class. Things like unit testing and refactoring were invented in Smalltalk - why not try the environment that spawned the entire TDD process?

Still not convinced? That’s fine - see for yourself. Download Smalltalk now from the Cincom Smalltalk website and give Seaside a test drive. Check out the “Smalltalk Daily” video tutorials to get started - we have a basic Seaside tutorial and a WebVelocity specific section for you.

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posted by James Robertson

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books

We Are Doomed: Review

May 7, 2010 14:23:22.000

I read a cheery book recently - John Derbyshire's "We Are Doomed: Reclaiming Conservative Pessimism ". It's an interesting read - whether you agree with the author's politics or not, it's hard to argue with some of his pessimism.

If I had to categorize him, I'd say that he falls on the libertarian-ish end of conservatism. I tend to fall in that direction, so there's a lot in the book I agree with, but - your mileage may vary, of course. It's a short read, so you won't need to invest a ton of time on it. If nothing else, have a look at his section on education. Based on my daughter's tour through the local school system, I'm not quite as pessimistic as he is, but it's close. You want to get depressed? Next time your teenage kid has a few friends around, pull a bill out of your wallet (any bill, including a $1), and ask the lot of them to identify whoever is on it. If you haven't tried this before, prepare to be astonished.

Anyway, it is a polemic - if you don't agree with the author's viewpoint, you may well be infuriated by the book. It's not an angry book though, so if you bring an open mind to it, you'll at least see where people you don't necessarily agree with are coming from. In that light, I recommend the book.

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posted by James Robertson

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gadgets

Apple's Vision

May 7, 2010 11:17:58.000

This is the kind of usage pattern Apple hopes to see:

All the PCs and laptops are basically not being used. All the Macs are not being used. All have been powered off. Everyone in the family is waiting for their turn at the iPad.
...
I don't think I'll be buying any more desktops going forward. I don't think I'll even be buying any more laptops going forward.

The big thing that a lot of tech folks don't get is that we aren't the target audience here. Apple built this for everyone else - the part they cast us in was "developer".

I know this much - since my wife got ahold of her iPad, her Windows PC has been sitting unused. She still uses her Macbook, but it looks like the iPad is getting more use. I still need a laptop, but I accept the fact that I'm an outlier in this :)

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posted by James Robertson

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tv

Someone Buy Mark Cuban an XBox

May 7, 2010 11:00:04.123

Mark Cuban thinks that Video on Demand will beat things like NetFlix because it's so much simpler:

You know what is AMAZING about VOD ? It gives you thousands of choices and its already connected to your TV. It just works. You don’t have to buy another box. You don’t have to figure out how to connect it to your TV. You don’t have to stream from another device over your WIFI network and get all confused about how to pull video from the internet. It just works. That’s what you want when you unbox that great big flat screen TV. You want it to work…. like a TV. Easily. Quickly.
...
I just don’t understand why media pundits think that people are going to want to turn those BRAND SPANKING NEW HDTVs into PC monitors watching internet quality video. It’s a hassle. There is nothing that works out of the box.

Apparently, Mr. Cuban has never seen an XBox. Or a Wii. Or a PS3. You plug those in the same way you plug in a DVD player or cable box, hook up to the net (far simpler now than it was a few years ago, and something anyone can do), and bam - you have access to streaming media. No PC or laptop, no conversion cables, just a few clicks on your controller.

Cuban is arguing against a strawman that doesn't exist. I'll agree that it's a pain to hook a laptop up to a TV (for my Macbook Pro, I need a DVI to HDMI cable, plus a Y cable for audio). But... that's not the route that's winning. Wake me when Cuban tunes into 2010 instead of 2003.

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posted by James Robertson

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web

Where is the Web Going

May 7, 2010 9:02:10.000

Tim Bray has an interesting post up on where the web is headed, and he starts off with this as one of his points:

The HTML specification process is controversy-laden , immensely ambitious, and is attempting to boil at least one ocean. There is no guarantee of success, no matter how you choose to measure it.

I'd suggest reading the whole piece. This assertion in the middle deserves some thought though:

The discovery, in the early Web browsers, that reasonably-typeset text which embedded simple forms and hyperlinks, and came equipped with a “Back” button, hit the biggest 80/20 point ever in the history of User Interfaces, couldn’t have been predicted by anybody; but it’s as true today as ever.

That was certainly true once; it's getting to be less true all the time. A ton of the apps I use don't work with the back button well (or at all) - Gmail being one of them. The dividing line between "web app" and "app" has been blurring for some time, and it's getting more blurry as time goes by. I expect HTML5 (or whatever comes down the pike) to continue that trend

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posted by James Robertson

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smalltalk

Seaside Debugging: Video

May 7, 2010 8:15:18.640

Today's Smalltalk Daily looks at how debugging works for web applications built in Seaside. The cool thing - it works just like debugging for any other Smalltalk app. 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"?

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posted by James Robertson

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smalltalk

Smalltalk in Toronto

May 7, 2010 7:48:51.000

The Toronto STUG has an interesting meeting coming up on May 10:

The agenda for the next meeting of the Toronto Smalltalk User Group, on Monday, May 10, includes:
  • which Smalltalk to use for an OO course?
  • demo of a Self-like programming environment for JavaScript (on top of Dan Ingalls' Lively Kernel)
  • demo of the Teleplace app in Cobalt, the 3D virtual world that is taking over for Croquet

Meetings start at 6:30 and are hosted by Ryerson University. 245 Church Street

They're a great group - mark this one down in your calendar!

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posted by James Robertson

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itNews

Gemstone Acquired Again

May 7, 2010 6:53:04.532

Gemstone has been acquired again - by a big player:

SpringSource, a division of VMware, Inc, and the leader in Java application infrastructure and management, today announced that VMware has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire GemStone Systems, Inc., a privately held provider of enterprise data management solutions based in Beaverton, Oregon

We'll have to wait to see what - if anything - that means for the Smalltalk business there. The focus of the acquisition seems to be Gemfire.

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posted by James Robertson

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development

Inconvenient Questions

May 7, 2010 6:44:23.972

Rob Fahrni asks a question that I haven't seen anyone else ask:

Yesterday, on Twitter, I asked “Can you develop XBox 360, Sony Playstation, or Wii apps using Flash?” There was a reason for that question. I was hoping someone would take the bait, but alas, nobody obliged. Once again I ask, can you develop XBox 360, Sony Playstation, or Wii apps using Flash? I’m fairly confident the answer is “NO.”

Consoles are pretty closed off development environments - but the technorati haven't been up in arms about that the way they have about the iPad/iPhone. I wonder why that is? Rob makes a number of other good points as well - go check his post out.

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posted by James Robertson

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games

Carcassonne for iPhone/iPad

May 6, 2010 15:29:22.000

This is cool news:

How do you feel about walled French cities? Farmers? Roads? Cloisters? If you answered any of those questions with a full-throated rebel yell, then I'll presume you're already familiar with Carcassonne, the tile-based board game in which you lay out farms and cities and populate them. You'll likewise be glad to know that the game's making its way to the iPhone and, eventually, the iPad.

I haven't played recently, but I've invested many a happy hour into that game :)

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posted by James Robertson

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smalltalk

Rails to Seaside

May 6, 2010 10:50:54.448

I ran across an interesting post from a guy who's made the move from Rails to Seaside - not because he has anything against Rails, but because he decided that Seaside was a better choice for him. You should really read the whole post - he goes through his learning process (yes, there were and are some hurdles to getting into Smalltalk) - but I really liked this bit:

A real debugger - in reality, most development time is spent editing code, and debugging. Debugging web apps has always been a tough thing. With seaside, it’s really a matter of going to a debugger on a crash, and inspecting the objects. You can edit the objects (and their methods) while they are live. While the system is running. you can also set breakpoints willy nilly, and inspect and edit the system on the fly. It’s hard to describe how alive the system is. You just need to try it.

People underestimate the importance of this a lot. In fact, you can find plenty of developers (including Rubyists) who will tell you that you shouldn't debug at all; tests will do it all for you. What that really means is this: debuggers in other languages are very, very different from what we have in Smalltalk, and when you get into Seaside, it's even more cool:

  • It's not just a debugger - it's a live editor of your code that happens to be debugging a live process
  • In Seaside, you can debug intra-hit

That latter part tends to throw people unless they see it; here's a screencast showing it off in Seaside, and here's another, showing it off in WebVelocity - which moves the entire Smalltalk environment into the browser itself - allowing for a seamless develop/debug/deploy chain. I like to describe it this way: normal debugers let you play the part of forensic pathologist - you get a dead body, and have to figure out what killed it. With Smalltalk, you're a surgeon - the patient is knocked out, but you can patch him up and send him off after you wake him back up.

One thing that I just noticed - I haven't done new versions of those videos in a bit - so I guess I have a couple of screencasts to do in the near future :) When I do that, I'll update this post. Anyway - they show off what I'm on about. Give WebVelocity a try, and see what Smalltalk can do for your Web Apps - it combines ActiveRecord with Seaside, along with the full support of the Cincom Smalltalk team.

Update: The Seaside screencast has been updated

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posted by James Robertson

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smalltalk

Debugging Hard Problems

May 6, 2010 8:18:32.927

Sometimes you run flat into a brick wall - you can usually resolve issues with the Smalltalk debugger, but - what if you're having problems at the VM level?

Well, there are two online resources that should give you some tips on getting started:

Have a look - if you need more information, and you're a customer, try Cincom Smalltalk Support

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posted by James Robertson

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smalltalk

Create a Block Programmatically: Video

May 6, 2010 7:49:49.022

Today's Smalltalk Daily looks at how to create a BlockClosure on the fly, based on user input. This screencast is based on a user request; the actual example is very dangerous! To download the code used, click 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"?

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posted by James Robertson

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games

More DragonAge DLC

May 5, 2010 16:44:35.000

BioWare has another DragonAge expansion scheduled to drop:

No one knows what it is, or where it's coming from design-wise, or why it exists at all, but according to Microsoft's Xbox 360 press blog, it'll be available on May 18 for 400 MS Points, or $5. Before you get too excited, recall that Dragon Age Origins: Awakening--the last major expansion for the game--costs $40 in the store (equivalent to 3200 MS Points).

For that cost, it really can't be much; sounds like a new area for Awakening, maybe?

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posted by James Robertson

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smalltalk

Create a Block from a String

May 5, 2010 14:20:01.000

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" :)

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posted by James Robertson

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smalltalk

ESUG 2010: Calling for Contributors

May 5, 2010 12:18:22.000

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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posted by James Robertson

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smalltalk

Workspace Variables in ObjectStudio 8: Video

May 5, 2010 9:06:36.064

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"?

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posted by James Robertson

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gadgets

Off to the Races

May 5, 2010 9:00:05.000

Adobe is touting Flash on Android based tablets (set to release later this year:

While Adobe does not have any Appleproducts on the show floor at the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco, the company is showing off prototypes of upcoming Android-based tablets. The Google Android Tablet, even in a pre-release form, is capable of running applications and features based on Adobe's Flash and Air codes.

What will be interesting is seeing what HP will do with their WebOS (Palm) based tablets, widely anticipated to debut next year. I expect they'll support Flash - in which case, we coud be seeing a rerun of the PC vs. Mac game. Apple has a head start this time with the app store, but the more open devices will have advantages as well.

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posted by James Robertson

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humor

Things Not to Do

May 5, 2010 7:22:19.446

XKCD nails it again :)

posted by James Robertson

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browsers

Browser Wars

May 4, 2010 21:10:29.000

It's an actual contest for mindshare again:

Microsoft’s Internet Explorer dropped to a historic market share low in April, according to Net Applications. The company estimated IE’s market share at 59.95% in April, which is about the range that was reached by Internet Explorer 4 more than 11 years ago in early 1999.

Now, if we could just get IE6 to die...

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smalltalk

A Seaside Chinese Tutor

May 4, 2010 19:05:54.000

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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posted by James Robertson

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itNews

Has Apple Dug in Too Deeply?

May 4, 2010 16:13:32.922

There are reports that Apple might get an anti-trust investigation - over their developer policy, and the new ad platform they are ready to roll out. It would probably be simpler for Apple to back off, but after Jobs rolled out his "Flash stinks" letter, that's going to be a dificult climb down - as PC World reports:

Whether Apple will truly reverse its developer agreement remains to be seen. Apple believes it has good reason for its decisions, and the company may be reluctant to back down after Jobs' public defense of its policies.

Even if the lawyers recommend backing off (and who knows if they do) - Apple will have some egg on its face. I think it would have been smarter for Jobs to say nothing, so that his options could have remained more open. Now? It's in that emotional realm that's so hard to escape from...

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posted by James Robertson

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games

StarCraft II Christmas in July

May 4, 2010 10:59:04.000

I loved the original StarCraft - I hope the sequel is as good as it sounds. It's hitting stores on July 27th; I think I'll have my credit card ready :)

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posted by James Robertson

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smalltalk

Smalltalk in Dublin

May 4, 2010 8:53:46.503

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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posted by James Robertson

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smalltalk

Set the Selection in a ComboBox Programmatically: Video

May 4, 2010 8:35:19.523

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"?

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posted by James Robertson

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development

The Grass is Always Greener, Software Development Version

May 4, 2010 7:01:40.958

I found these tow posts - one on Reddit, one on the "Code Bubbles" project - to be a fascinating contrast. Over on Reddit, someone flagged the release of GNU Smalltalk 3.2. This generated the all too common "image based development stinks - real me use code in files" argument. For instance:

Can this Smalltalk implementation use the typical file model and compile down code into native binaries, or does it use the g****** image model and require the interpreter to run any apps?

All by itself, that's not noteworthy - discussions around image based development often get heated like that. What I found interesting was this comment from the Code Bubble project:

Developers spend significant time reading and navigating code fragments spread across multiple locations. The file-based nature of contemporary IDEs makes it prohibitively difficult to create and maintain a simultaneous view of such fragments. We propose a novel user interface metaphor for code understanding and maintanence based on collections of lightweight, editable fragments called bubbles, which form concurrently visible working sets.

The UI metaphor you see in the video detaches code from files, and - more or less - simulates an image. Maybe we'll see convergence over time.

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posted by James Robertson

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education

Step One: Outsourcing the Grading

May 3, 2010 20:49:38.065

I seriously doubt that the outsourcing of education will end here:

Prices vary per course, but Virtual-TA estimates the program costs a university about $12 per student per assignment. Six assignments for 20 students would cost $1,440. EduMetry graders receive from $500 to $1,000 a month, depending on hours worked, according to GlobalPost, a news service.

At one point, I might have worried about these sorts of jobs going overseas, but I've been looking at the cost of a University education (I have a teenage daughter a couple years away from that) - and the costs are absurd. The next logical step is streaming video to multiple locations from a single good professor - and when that happens, the cost of an education might finally leave the stratosphere.

Can't happen too soon, IMHO...

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posted by James Robertson

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law

A Bridge Too Far

May 3, 2010 17:40:38.655

Apple may have gone too far with their development restrictions for the iPhone/iPad - there's a story in the NY Post claiming that the feds may be looking into those policies on anti-competitive grounds:

According to a person familiar with the matter, the Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission are locked in negotiations over which of the watchdogs will begin an antitrust inquiry into Apple's new policy of requiring software developers who devise applications for devices such as the iPhone and iPad to use only Apple's programming tools.

I thought the efforts against Microsoft were silly, and I think this is too - the market will (eventually) deal with Apple if they have gone too far. However, that's simply my opinion. Apple should be more worried about what the folks at Justice and the FTC think.

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law

Not So Open

May 3, 2010 11:25:23.000

I haven't paid much attention to the H.264 patent issues, but perhaps I should have - according to CS News, the license for H.264 encoded video is insane:

As I explained above, the problem CAN NOT be fixed by simply exporting your footage using OGV Theora, because by the time you decided you want to charge for your video, or upload it on a free streaming site with ads, or you used a non-licensed *decoder* to edit it, you're already liable. In fact, you've already made your decision which route to take by the moment you pressed that "REC" button on your camera! Theora (and any other Free codec) only helps you in one small part of the licensing minefield that MPEG-LA has setup in the last 20 years. It doesn't protect you in the whole chain of creation-editing-exporting-sharing, which is how MPEG-LA has locked us in for good.

If their reasoning is right, most people who have shot video and uploaded it to YouTube (et. al.) are in violation - because the streaming ads push it off "non-commercial and personal". Maybe, I don't know. Certainly if you charge for video in any way you could have a problem.

On the other hand, I can't see how the patent owners would enforce this now. Doesn't mean they won't try though - witness the idiots at the RIAA and MPAA....

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social media

The Good Old Days

May 3, 2010 9:53:54.000

This is the kind of non-reflective stuff I love from social scientists - in the context of worrying about the rise of texting/IM/etc as a communications default amongst kids:

What she and many others who work with children see are exchanges that are more superficial and more public than in the past. “When we were younger we would be on the phone for hours at a time with one person,” said Ms. Evans. Today instant messages are often group chats. And, she said, “Facebook is not a conversation.”

If you jumped into the wayback machine to the 70's, there were plenty of people worried about the impersonal nature of phone conversations, and how it "just couldn't replace" face to face conversations. I suspect that this current worry is part of the ever present worry on the part of adults that the next generation is somehow being ruined by technology.

posted by James Robertson

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smalltalk

Customizing a Workbook: Video

May 3, 2010 8:32:43.933

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"?

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smalltalk

Shared Substreams

May 3, 2010 8:32:31.000

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.

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smalltalk

GNU Smalltalk 3.2 Out

May 2, 2010 18:27:00.269

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

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posted by James Robertson

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smalltalk

Scratching the iPad Itch: Podcast

May 2, 2010 11:56:54.600

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!

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web

Flash - Not in the Majority Anymore

May 2, 2010 7:18:34.000

It looks like Apple has been quietly winning the battle against Flash:

As the chart [link above] shows, in the past four quarters, the H.264 format went from 31 percent of all videos to 66 percent, and is now the largest format by far. Meanwhile, Flash is represented by Flash VP6 and FLV, which combined represent only 26 percent of all videos. That is down from a combined total of 69 percent four quarters ago. So the native Flash codecs and H.264 have completely flipped in terms of market share (Flash also supports H.264, however, but you don’t need a Flash player to watch H.264 videos)

Wow, I had no idea. I thought Flash was still the biggest player - but it looks like Apple has already won that battle. As one of the folks on the Smalltalk IRC channel pointed out: "h.264 won the day that youtube started using it"

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posted by James Robertson

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gadgets

Semi-Mobile Video

May 1, 2010 11:51:25.000

It looks like the iPad is a semi-mobile device in the "video streaming on the go" side of things:

The iPad’s built-in YouTube application strips both standard and HD videos to a dramatically lower resolution over the cellular data connection, something that iTunes Store video previews notably do not do, instead staying at a higher quality and consuming a greater amount of data. Other third-party applications, such as the ABC Player, refuse to work at all over the cellular connection, producing a notification pop-up that states, "Please connect to a Wi-Fi network to use this application. Cellular networks are not supported at this time."

So... if you had a Netbook and one of the 3G cards you can slap into a USB port, does this happen? I suspect not. Steve Jobs might want to hop on this, as it's clearly a bigger part of the experience than whether Flash supports touch well or not...

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gadgets

Microsoft has lost that "Zing"

May 1, 2010 8:30:41.000

Dvorak gets this right - what if Microsoft played the mobile game the way they played the PC game twenty years ago?

Microsoft's key to success with a Zune Phone would be the addition of all sorts of screwball features. An easy way to do this is to do what Microsoft has always done: copy other people's work. In this case, the handset should come preloaded with 100 apps. It wouldn't take a lot of time to find out the top 100 iPhone apps. Clone them and pre-install them on the Zune Phone—or make them a part of the phone's basic functionality.

It's not as if they lack the resources to do that - they have money galore, and tons of talent. What they apparently lack is leadership.

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posted by James Robertson

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music

Will iTunes add Streaming?

April 30, 2010 19:55:50.000

Apple is shutting down Lala at the end of May - that's awfully close to their June announcements. Does this mean that we can expect a rollout of a streaming service from Apple? It's hard for me to understand why they would have bought Lala if that isn't planned....

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posted by James Robertson

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gadgets

Ceding the Field?

April 30, 2010 18:52:30.000

Looks like people are ceding the tablet field to Apple:

HP has conceded the tablet war before it even engaged in battle by terminating the HP Slate project.

This device was supposed to be one of the major Windows based answers to the iPad - now it's a non-answer. Whatever you think of Apple's moves on Flash and language development restrictions, it looks like they'll win the early stages of that battle - simply due to the fact that they'll be the only ones playing the game.

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posted by James Robertson

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itNews

Change

April 30, 2010 14:53:29.000

Engadget notes that Microsoft is echoing Apple's lines about the future of video on the net. Cast your mind back a decde and ask yourself whether things would have progressed from Apple to Microsoft that way:

Where Steve Jobs leads, Microsoft follows -- how's that for shaking up the hornet's nest? It's said in jest, of course, but we've just come across a post from the General Manager for Internet Explorer, Dean Hachamovitch, and the perspective expressed by him on the subject of web content delivery broadly agrees with the essay penned by Jobs yesterday on the very same subject. Echoing the Apple CEO's words, Hachamovitch describes HTML5 as "the future of the web," praising it for allowing content to be played without the need for plug-ins and with native hardware acceleration (in both Windows 7 and Mac OS X).

No, Microsoft isn't banning Flash from IE - but further down Hachamovitch did single it out as a security and reliability problem that needed attention. It's been a bad week for Adobe.

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posted by James Robertson

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itNews

Adobe Responds

April 30, 2010 13:12:22.000

Adobe's CEO has responded (in an interview) to Steve Jobs' smackdown:

Narayen didn't offer much we haven't heard Adobe say before, but his frustration with Apple is palpable even in summary form: he called Jobs' points a "smokescreen," said Flash is an "open specification," and further said Apple's restrictions are "cumbersome" to developers and have "nothing to do with technology." What's more, he also said Jobs' claims about Flash affecting battery life are "patently false," and suggested that any Flash-related crashes on OS X have more to do with Apple's operating system than Adobe's software.

The market will figure this out - it's Apple's way, Google's way, RIM, and whatever HP does with Palm. I'd include Microsoft, but they've been fumbling the ball in this space for more years than I can count.

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posted by James Robertson

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social media

The Social Web

April 30, 2010 10:37:41.000

The semantic web is apparently a sponsored thing:

Facebook has just given us an idea of how quickly these widgets are being adopted: a week after f8, 50,000 websites now feature the Like button and the other new plugins.

There were plenty of people who thought that it would happen some other way - but what was really needed was a critical mass of social users (all the Facebook users) who could be encouraged to start using simple "semantic web" stuff such as the "like" button. I'm part of that 50k - look at the bottom of this post :)

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posted by James Robertson

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web

Flash Not Dead: Film at 11

April 30, 2010 8:34:01.000

While Apple has unloaded on Flash, YouTube has quietly unveiled a new flash player for the site:

YouTube has started to roll out a new Flash video player across its site that features not only a completely new design, but also offers some nifty bits of information about the performance of the current video.

However this plays out, it is not going to be a quick thing...

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posted by James Robertson

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smalltalk

Reusing Column Buffers with Oracle and VW: Video

April 30, 2010 6:49:39.586

Today's Smalltalk Daily looks at reusing column buffers with Oracle (version 9 and up) with VisualWorks. This is an upcoming feature of VisualWorks, scheduled for VW 7.7.1. If you're looking for a particular topic, you can find it with the Media Search application on our site.

The code used is below; To watch, click on the viewer:


"Connect to an Oracle database."
conn := OracleConnection new.
conn username: 'username';
password: 'password';
environment: 'ORACLEDB'.
conn connect.

sess := conn getSession.

"The default is false meaning not to reuse."
sess reuseColumnBuffers: false.

t1 := Time millisecondsToRun:[
       " | conn sess ansStrm |"
     100 timesRepeat: [
		sess prepare:  'select * from sys.all_tables where TABLE_NAME=''DUAL'''.
		sess execute.
		ansStrm := sess answer.
		res := ansStrm upToEnd.
	].
].
Transcript cr; show: 'Time spent without reusing row buffers: ', t1 asFloat printString.

"Set to reuse the column buffers."
sess reuseColumnBuffers: true.

t2 := Time millisecondsToRun:[
       " | conn sess ansStrm |"
     100 timesRepeat: [
		sess prepare:  'select * from sys.all_tables where TABLE_NAME=''DUAL'''.
		sess execute.
		ansStrm := sess answer.
		res := ansStrm upToEnd.
	].
].
Transcript cr; show: 'Time spent with reusing row buffers: ', t2 asFloat printString.


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

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posted by James Robertson

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