. .

BottomFeeder

New BottomFeeder Development Build

May 17, 2010 19:07:25.356

I've posted a new development build of BottomFeeder - check it out, and let me know if you hit any roadblocks. I'm hoping to do a release of 4.7 shortly.

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posted by James Robertson

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general

Annals of Printing

May 17, 2010 14:41:36.178

Ok, this is from an ancient Windows XP box, but still: a windows update rolled by last week, and didn't auto-reboot the machine. It did leave it unable to print to anything though. So I rebooted it, brought up Excel, and tried to print an expense report. Here's what came out on take one:

4 pages of that later, the top part of the spreadsheet came out. Things worked fine when I printed again, but what the heck was that???

posted by James Robertson

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social media

Non-Shocker - Facebook's Problems Limited to A-Listers

May 17, 2010 13:30:42.332

This doesn't surprise me a bit - Facebook is still growing, and the "backlash" over privacy is limited to a handful of overly self important A-Listers:

Facebook has had a net gain of 10 million active users since it announced a series of new features at f8, the company's April 21st developer conference. A few high profile tech bloggers may have quit the site, but not many other people have. The number of deactivations, according to a Facebook spokesperson, is about the same as it's been all along.

Outside of the upper reaches of the blogosphere, I haven't heard anyone talking about Facebook having a problem. Here's the bottom line: no else one cares. People seem to have a pretty good grasp of what Facebook is useful for, and they use it for those things. Here's a question: if you aren't a celebrity, how the heck else are you going to regain contact with people you went to school with for a reunion? Back when people tended to live where they grew up, this was a non-issue. Now?

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stupidity

Focusing on the Trivial

May 17, 2010 9:27:46.042

You have to love the deep minds at the MPAA. While other people discuss the actual issues behind US troops being in a war, the MPAA is worried about.... piracy:

Less known are the movie industry’s efforts to clamp down on copyright infringers who are defending their country’s interests on foreign soil. Because the availability of legal movies and TV-shows is limited in countries such as Iraq, soldiers sometimes use BitTorrent to get their fix, or buy pirated DVDs from local sellers. The MPAA is not happy with these defiant soldiers. A declassified document from the United States Central Command shows that, a few years ago, the MPAA asked the military what they do to prevent soldiers from accessing pirated DVDs in Iraq.

Because that's clearly the most relevant issue there - whether some soldier managed to get an illicit copy of "Iron Man".

Every time I think the MPAA can't get stupider, I end up having to expand the definition of "stupider"...

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smalltalk

Seaside Tutorial (4) - Video

May 17, 2010 8:55:23.789

Today's Smalltalk Daily is part 4 of our updated Seaside tutorial, for VW 7.7/OS 8.2 and Seaside 3.0. The tutorial home page is here. Today we look at rendering some content in Seaside. If you're picking things up here, grab the work in progress to this point, and the download the domain model being used. Today we add a menu to our UI. 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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advertising

Gadgets and Plugins

May 17, 2010 6:51:47.792

posted by James Robertson

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smalltalk

WebVelocity 1.1: Podcast

May 16, 2010 19:31:35.521

This week's podcast is just Michael and I talking about WebVelocity 1.1 - which is currently in an internal alpha state, soon to be beta. If you're interested in taking a look at the beta when it's ready, send me an email. What's coming in 1.1?

  • Better Editing using the HTML5 canvas
  • Seaside 3.0
  • Instant Cloud deployment capabilities - meaning, support for a lot of the Amazon cloud platform

There's more than that - listen to the podcast to catch up!

It was a fun talk, and things sound somewhat hopeful with respect to the app store - listen to the podcast to find out what I mean by that! To get Scratch now, visit the website and become one of the millions who've created an uploaded a project.

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.

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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posted by James Robertson

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gadgets

Will it Come Down to Developers?

May 16, 2010 10:18:00.453

A lot of people think that the Apple vs. Adobe thing (Flash) will end up costing Apple the platform battle for the mobile space - Mark Cooper sums it up with the most common argument:

And since developers — as a general rule, and matter of history — don’t like to be told how to do things, my guess is that more open platforms will win

That sounds reasonable, but... then there are the usage stats for Flash over the last year or so. The numbers don't look good for Adobe; I'd say they look bad enough that Apple has won this particular battle already, regardless of what else happens. Why? Those kinds of usage numbers feed on each other.

Back in the late 90's, after the ParcPlace-Digitalk merger had reached a real point of badness, PPD announced the VSE was being obsoleted. The last forward looking work on that product was done sometime around 1996/1997. With that announcement, the number of paying customers halved in about 12 months.

Now, this isn't a straight analogy; Adobe isn't cancelling Flash. However, with the fact that it doesn't work on one of the main mobile platforms, it's cancelling itself, and the numbers linked above demonstrate that. With Flash dropping so fast, I see the same dynamic in action. Unless the Android platform compteley swamps Apple (and absent a tablet for a few months, I don't see that happening) - Flash is just doomed to second tier status.

Now, long term, Apple could still lose this, the same way they lost the desktop space to Microsoft years ago. However, it sure doesn't look like that to me now, and - in the meantime - they are reshaping a lot of what happens on the web.

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news

Stay Away from my Ketchup

May 15, 2010 22:37:14.809

This will probably annoy me as much as New Coke did:

The Pittsburgh-based condiment maker has started making batches of ketchup using a recipe with less salt. The new version will hit store shelves this summer.

And why, you ask? Mostly because complete morons like the mayor of NYC have taken it upon themselves to define how much salt I'm allowed to have. Meh.

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gadgets

Thoughts on the iPad

May 15, 2010 13:12:38.647

This is second hand - my wife uses the iPad, not me. Having siad that, she really likes it. One of the problems she's had with books of late has to do with her eyes, and the presbyopia thing. The iPad deals with that two ways:

  • The backlit screen helps, as low light conditions are especially troublesome
  • The ability to easily change the text size

An ancillary benefit is that the growing pile of books on the shelf behind the bed has stopped growing; we were starting to worry about an avalanche :)

We just ordered a cable from Apple to drive output from the iPad to the TV - given the various video options available, it would be nice to toss the output across the room. We'll have those cables in a day or two; I'll post once we see how well that works.

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gadgets

Apple Taking Gaming Share

May 15, 2010 1:21:46.020

With video game revenues down, Nintendo has to shift focus:

Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata is understood to have told his senior executives recently to regard the battle with Sony as a victory already won and to treat Apple, and its iPhone and iPad devices, as the 'enemy of the future.

Apple has also driven margins down. DS games tend to run in the tens of dollars; games for the iPhone and Touch are usually in the 99 cent range. If Nintendo wants to compete, they'll have to create their own ecosystem, as Apple has...

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gadgets

So Retro it's Scary

May 14, 2010 19:17:41.165

What do you do if you have the audio for a cassette used to load code onto an Apple IIe? Why, you use your iPad to push it across, that's what. The video is pretty cool :)

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tv

Good News, Bad News

May 14, 2010 13:14:01.000

I won't lament "Flash Forward" being cancelled - the book was way, way better, and didn't veer off into ridiculous conspiracies. However, it's a travesty that "Better off Ted" is being whacked - that's a great show.

Meanwhile, the eminently unwatchable "V" got renewed. Meh. SciFiWire has the story.

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books

The Design of Design

May 14, 2010 9:16:56.864

I haven't finished reading Fred Brooks' latest: "The Design of Design: Essays from a Computer Scientist" yet, but I really like what I've read. It's easy to read and quite pleasant; Brooks lets you know what he's thinking without a ton of jargon, and uses examples (the design of a beach house he was involved in) that are easy to grasp and make sense.

This bit, from a section on "telecollaboration" really struck true for me, based on the geographically dispersed team I work with at Cincom:

The most successful telecollaborations I have known have been built on extensive face-time histories, and even those have required some face time during ongoing telecollaboration. Absent such histories, travel is worth what it costs in money and time

A lot of people discount that, but I think it's very, very true. The less well people know each other, the easier it is to misconstrue an email, or the tone of voice in a skype chat. Face time isn't a cure all; you'll still have personality conflicts to deal with - but it will get people to know each other's quirks, and make allowances for them.

Anyway, there's a lot more in that book - it's just that what I posted above really hit home for me. Once I finish the book, I'll post more thoughts on it.

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smalltalk

Seaside Tutorial (3) - Video

May 14, 2010 8:39:34.300

Today's Smalltalk Daily is part 2 of our updated Seaside tutorial, for VW 7.7/OS 8.2 and Seaside 3.0. The tutorial home page is here. Today we look at rendering some content in Seaside. If you're picking things up here, grab the work in progress to this point, and the download the domain model being used. 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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tutorial

Open a Window Where You Want It

May 14, 2010 7:10:42.876

Ever wanted to set a window's opening location programmatically in VisualWorks? It looks harder than it is. As you wend your way through the opening code, it's easy to just throw your hands in the air.

Here's a simple solution (thanks to Travis for this one)

  • Create the window using the UI tools
  • Copy the #windowSpec method (class side) to something else, like #baseWindowSpec
  • Now, create a new #windowSpec method like this:


windowSpec
	"make it open where I want it"

	| spec |
	spec := self baseWindowSpec decodeAsLiteralArray.
	spec window bounds: (100 @ 100 extent: 400 @ 500).
	^spec literalArrayEncoding

Replacing the dimensions, of course, with what you actually want. What does that do? It grabs the spec and manipulates the object directly - which, insofar as the framework allows, is the right thing to do. Anyway, it's a simple way of getting a Window to open where you want it to - enjoy.

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humor

Privacy at Facebook

May 14, 2010 6:41:40.590

Joy of Tech gets a good jab in :)

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posted by James Robertson

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gadgets

Would iPhone Owners Switch?

May 13, 2010 19:07:32.000

John Gruber writes about a possible Verizon iPhone, and says in the middle of the piece:

If Verizon had the iPhone, surely many current AT&T customers would switch.

Well, not so much. At least not immediately. Why? The current iPhone won't work on the Verizon network. Then, unless Apple shipped a tri-band phone (2g, CDMA, and GSM), the Verizon iPhone - like most Verizon phones - would be a brick if you traveled overseas.

This is one of those "grass is always greener" things. Personally, I wouldn't switch unless it was a tri-band phone, and even then, I'd have to be convinced by better plans. Unlike so many other people, I simply haven't run into the supposedly lousy ATT network. For me, it's been as reliable as Verizon was.

Now, I'm not everyone, and certainly verizon would sell a bunch of iPhones. However, most of that would be to new people, at least initially. There would be some loud switchers to be sure, but in numbers? Hard to say.

Hat tip Rob Fahrni

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posted by James Robertson

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smalltalk

Squeakfest in July

May 13, 2010 17:16:40.000

Spotted in Planet Squeak

The official Squeakfest website is now live and ready for you to propose a presentation, workshop, or panel: http://squeakfest.org. The dates for Squeakfest USA in Wilmington NC are July 26, 27, 28. The theme for this year's conference will be "Etoys in the STEM classroom."

Sounds like fun - follow the link for full details.

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posted by James Robertson

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management

Sun's Culture: Going

May 13, 2010 14:13:13.000

I'd say that this is a pretty clear sign that Oracle intends to quash a lot of Sun's old culture and make it more sales oriented - a quote from Ellison:

The underlying engineering teams are so good, but the direction they got was so astonishingly bad that even they couldn't succeed," said Ellison. "Really great blogs do not take the place of great microprocessors. Great blogs do not replace great software. Lots and lots of blogs does not replace lots and lots of sales.

That's a pretty hard jab at old "give it away and make it up in volume" Schwartz there. It's really too bad they had to pay that idiot off as part of the acquisition; based on his management skills, he should have been paying Oracle...

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posted by James Robertson

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tutorial

Setting Up Store for SQLite

May 13, 2010 13:30:18.459

One of the hurdles to using version control with Cincom Smalltalk has been the requirement that you set up a relational database - Oracle, SQLServer (etc) are fairly complex beasts. Even PostgreSQL, which is free, can be difficult to set up. Recently, however, it became possible to use SQLite as the back end for Store - and nothing could be easier than using that - it's a simple file based database. If you're on Windows you might have to visit the website and install SQLite, but that's a simple matter of pushing a dll or two onto your system - you can set up databases on the fly.

For Store itself, here are the steps - first, open the parcel manager and load the appropriate support:

Next, just type the following code into a workspace and execute it:


Store.DbRegistry installDatabaseTables.

You'll be prompted a few times; first is a login. For this, the username and password don't really matter; just put in anything. Be sure to pick SQLite3Connection from the drop down though:

Next, fill in the same name you used above for the repository:

For the next two prompts, just let them default:

That's it for installation. Now pull down the Store menu and connect to your new repository:

And that's it - notice the name in the lower corner of the launcher - you're up and running!

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posted by James Robertson

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itNews

Adobe Vs. Apple

May 13, 2010 11:47:40.000

It's not just Adobe's evangelist calling Apple out on their anti-Flash stance now - the company has started running ads on the subject:

Ironically, the ad itself (as opposed to the image above) is Flash, so you won't actually see it if you're using an iPhone or iPad (and on Engadget's site, the iPhone gets the mobil version of the site without the ad anyway). That kind of speaks to the difficulty Adobe faces - a large part of their target audience will never see this campaign.

In any event, it does illustrate this: Adobe isn't backing off on this. There have been plenty of "Flash on Android" bits of news as well, so the "Open Platform vs. Apple" thing that happened with PC's and Macs could be repeating itself. On the other hand, I think Apple is in a much stronger position now than they were then, and the trendlines for Flash are running against Adobe. We'll see.

Update: I have to say, I like the headline at TechCrunch on this:

Adobe, You Brought An Advertisement To A Gun Fight

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itNews

No Streaming for You

May 13, 2010 9:05:07.000

The one thing you can say about the big ISPs is this: they seem to have no clue how people would like to use their services. Witness Rogers in Canada talking about their data plans for the iPad:

Rogers says the tablets are a new category of product and "it's too early to say if customers will use more or less data than they do for the iPhone," but the company remains optimistic that the 250MB/5GB plans "will be more than enough for virtually all of our customers."

Right... you take a vacation with your iPad, stream a movie or two using 3G - and bam, you've used up all your bandwidth for that month. It's willfull ignorance. They do say they don't intend to charge for overage, instead "rolling you into a new month". Which is an overage charge called something else.

Mind you, it's not the pay as you go part I think is silly - it's the "5GB is all you'll ever need" thing. Why not offer a few higher use plans?

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smalltalk

Seaside Tutorial Part 2: Video

May 13, 2010 8:31:22.577

Today's Smalltalk Daily is part 2 of our updated Seaside tutorial, for VW 7.7/OS 8.2 and Seaside 3.0. The tutorial home page is here. Today we look at building our first components in Seaside, and getting the application to display in a browser. To download the domain model being 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"?

posted by James Robertson

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itNews

No Open WiFi For You

May 13, 2010 6:54:27.577

This sounds pretty extreme to me:

Germany's top criminal court ruled Wednesday that Internet users need to secure their private wireless connections by password to prevent unauthorized people from using their Web access to illegally download data.

I know that I've used open WiFi while traveling before - it's a simple way to share a connection. The penalties sound ridiculous - over $100 "if a third party takes advantage of their unprotected WLAN connection to illegally download music or other files"

So... the German equivalents of the RIAA and MPAA have managed to make life more difficult for normal people. As they usually do.

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social media

Good Luck With That

May 12, 2010 14:31:04.000

I linked to this story about an attempt to create a "distributed Facebook" earlier, but I was making a different point about privacy. When I really got into the article, I noticed this:

As they describe it, the Diaspora* software will let users set up their own personal servers, called seeds, create their own hubs and fully control the information they share. Mr. Sofaer says that centralized networks like Facebook are not necessary.

Umm, sure. First, your ISP probably forbids you from running a server of that nature (nevermind whether it should be that way; it is). Second, setting up your own VPS, while easier than it once was, is not for the faint of heart. I documented my efforts here; unless they plan to ship a preconfigured VM for deployment (complete with Apache configuration), then this will catch fire with a handful of tinkerers, and no one else.

What makes Facebook work is that it's simple. This effort might be some things, but simple won't be one of them.

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games

Games and Stability

May 12, 2010 13:11:59.000

One of the things I always disliked about running games on Windows was what happened to the OS - it tended to get unstable after running a game (and sometimes while running a game). I've learned this week that the problem isn't limited to Windows.

Last night I was playing Dragon Age on my Mac, while running the normal number of apps I have up (a scarily large number, I'll admit). The game locked up, and locked the Mac up with it. After a power switch reboot, I tried again - and watched the same thing happen.

So.... I ran DragonAge without any of the other things I normally run, and things were better. This is why I like console gaming :)

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smalltalk

Dynamic Languages in Tokyo

May 12, 2010 11:00:49.000

The S3 Conference (self sustaining systems) has issued a call for papers for the conference, to be held September 27-28 in Tokyo:

The Workshop on Self-sustaining Systems (S3) is a forum for discussion of topics relating to computer systems and languages that are able to bootstrap, implement, modify, and maintain themselves. One property of these systems is that their implementation is based on small but powerful abstractions; examples include (amongst others) Squeak/Smalltalk, COLA, Klein/Self, PyPy/Python, Rubinius/Ruby, and Lisp. Such systems are the engines of their own replacement, giving researchers and developers great power to experiment with, and explore future directions from within, their own small language kernels.

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social media

Mountains and Molehills

May 12, 2010 8:55:11.000

Is Facebook overplaying its hand with respect to privacy? There are certainly a lot of people who think so; Jason Calacanis has a long missive up on it, and the Times has a story about a startup dedicated to creating a social media site that "cares about privacy".

I guess my take on all this is a big bag of "so what?" Social media sites exist to share data; if you put something up that you don't want shared, then you're mostly just fooling yourself. Posit some site that has some perfect set of privacy rules. You put up a set of photos that you only share with a core group of friends. Well. If even one of those people copies one of those photos and emails it, then the privacy controls stop mattering, don't they?

All of this is much ado about less than nothing, IMHO. If you put it on a website of any kind, you should expect that it could get shared, period. All the controls in the world won't stop "copy" followed by "email". Once you realize that, you realize just how little this entire conversation matters.

posted by James Robertson

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smalltalk

Seaside Tutorial (1): Video

May 12, 2010 8:27:16.404

Today's Smalltalk Daily is part 1 of our updated Seaside tutorial, for VW 7.7/OS 8.2 and Seaside 3.0. The tutorial home page is here. To download the domain model being 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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humor

Extra Social

May 12, 2010 6:38:07.063

What happens when you delete your Facebook account :)

posted by James Robertson

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general

It's That Time in the Ownership Cycle

May 11, 2010 17:48:19.398

We've had issues with dishwashers in the past, but now I think it's just a "time in the house" thing. We had to have the furnace repaired in March; today we had the washer repaired, and tomorrow there's a bit of dryer maintenance. Thank goodness we don't have the roof issues our neighbor has had though - every time it gets windy, I find bits of their shingles in my yard...

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gadgets

Payments for Everyone

May 11, 2010 13:36:54.000

This is pretty cool:

With Square, anyone can accept credit or debit card payments by downloading the app and plugging a little plastic cube into the headphone jack of an iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, or Android phone.

That's not only disruptive; for people who can meet to arrange payment, it pulls action away from sites like EBay. I'm not sure how widespread this will become; you still need the card swiper gadget. Things will really change if and when you can use your phone directly, without additional gizmos...

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smalltalk

Powering Forward with Smalltalk

May 11, 2010 11:53:52.000

I like this tweet:

A developer with 0 knowledge of Seaside can get momentum much faster than some with 0 knowledge of Rails. Smalltalk is simpler.

I've felt that way - about the gaining momentum, that is - with every web framework I've ever used in Smalltalk. When I started with VisualWave back in the 90's, it was easy to move ahead - I recall taking to it very quickly. When I built the blog server that runs this site, it was the first application I had really done with the Web Toolkit - and again, it was very, very eays to get going.

Seaside, especially with WebVelocity, has been a similar experience. I was able to build a small application that had Ajax functionality and a database as a back end very quickly - and when I started, I really didn't know much about Seaside.

The common factor here: Smalltalk. Sure, I know Smalltalk well at this point, and that gives me a leg up - but I think Smalltalk is just simpler. The exploratory nature of the system just makes life simpler. When I don't understand something, I don't pound my head on the table - I just let it break and ponder the objects in the debugger. There, with all the application state live, things become clear pretty quickly. That's the thing Seaside really brings to the party, by the way - Smalltalk level debugging for the web. It's a powerful thing.

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smalltalk

Reconciling Store Packages

May 11, 2010 8:47:35.834

Today's Smalltalk Daily looks at how to reconcile two Store packages. 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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itNews

Headed the Wrong Way

May 11, 2010 8:05:01.000

I'd call this an understatement (the context is the proposed nationwide ISP filter in Australia):

"The Western international community do seem to be condemning the net filter," he said. "However, we get translations of Chinese newspapers that point to Australia as an example of positive censorship. From our point of view, when China is pointing to you in their local state-run newspapers as a positive example on the issue of censorship in Australia, surely something's going wrong."

That should be a huge flashing neon sign labelled "you're doing it wrong"...

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humor

Tech Hoarding

May 11, 2010 6:50:55.326

I have to admit, I do this sort of thing too: hold onto old gadget gear long past its due date. Do I really think I'll ever need the old Zip drives I have in a box somewhere? And, like the story I linked to, I have two drawers of stuff in my office (and a few boxes in the basement). The 1997 era laptops will probably never be booted again, either :)

The scary part is that some of those cables are still in their original shrinkwrap...

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smalltalk

Demonstration Bleg

May 10, 2010 16:35:18.074

As anyone who reads my blog knows, I produce a ton of short videos - one per day, in fact. I've been aiming those pretty solidly at a technical audience - people who would like to know more about developing in Smalltalk, and need help with the system/libraries.

Another question comes to mind though: what kind of demonstration do you think works to really show off what's cool about Smalltalk? Meaning - how it can help you, as a developer, be more productive. What suggestions do you have for me in that area - something that could be covered in 5 minutes or less in a screencast or video, preferably.

Thanks! You can leave a comment, or email me.

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itNews

WiGig - Cut the Cord Coming?

May 10, 2010 11:45:41.000

The upside of this new proposed Wireless standard:

At a speed of 7 gigabits per second, WiGig can easily handle the transfer of high-def video. That positions it as a replacement for wired HDMI connections or optical audio cables.

The downside - range. It sounds like it's mostly for same room transfers, not same building. Still - that would be pretty darn handy for things like Netflix, and make "out of the box" setup a ton easier.

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smalltalk

Smalltalk in Stuttgart

May 10, 2010 10:26:00.000

posted by James Robertson

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smalltalk

Overriding a Class Definition: Video

May 10, 2010 9:02:12.074

Today's Smalltalk Daily looks at how tooverride a class definition, and save that definition into your own package. To learn about overriding methods, or adding extension methods, see this screencast. 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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itNews

The Next Domain Rush

May 10, 2010 7:22:14.846

If you do business in laces that use non-latin alphabets, then you have a new brand protection issue on your hands - non-latin domains went live this weekend. http://موقع.وزارة-الأتصالات.مصر/, for instance. Try putting that in your browser - it should actually work, although I have no idea how to read any of it :)

posted by James Robertson

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