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smalltalk

CSV and JSON for Pharo

June 22, 2012 19:52:46.534

There are new reader/writer frameworks for CSV and JSON in Pharo

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posted by James Robertson

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games

Expect Less Clarity in ME3

June 22, 2012 13:45:49.527

BioWare is releasing the "epilogue" for ME3 on June 26th:

BioWare is releasing the Extended Cut downloadable content for sci-fi role-playing game Mass Effect 3 on June 26, it said today.

I expect less clarity. Why? They are still holding firm to the "we didn't screw up the ending" theory of operation. Things won't get better until someone takes Casey Hudson into a room and explains to him - presumably using very small words - that he's managed to kill the franchise, and that the team will be executing a full retcon. Until then? The stupid will just keep rolling. Why do I say that?

BioWare also added that this new DLC will not change the ending, but instead expand upon it: "The Extended Cut is an expansion of the original endings to Mass Effect 3. It does not fundamentally change the endings, but rather it expands on the meaning of the original endings, and reveals greater detail on the impact of player decisions."

That's what we call an epic fail.

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posted by James Robertson

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ST 4U 249: DOMs and DTDs in VA Smalltalk

June 22, 2012 13:36:20.036

Today's Smalltalk 4 You looks at the standard development process using VA Smalltalk and ENVY. 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:

XML and DTD.

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 look at using a DTD in conjunction with an XML document - to get started, you'll want to load the XML Support and XML Examples. Once you've done that, you can have a look at class AbtXmlBasicExample class, and method #saxExample. You'll also see that there are other examples - you should probably have a look at all of them. Try executing the example code

Example

To run this example, use:


AbtXmlBasicSamples maplessExample


That will drop the XML file that's used first, and then execute the XML handling. The results come back this way:

DTD Handling

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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js4u

JS 4U 168: JQuery UI Dialog

June 21, 2012 7:42:16.639

Javascript 4 U

Today's Javascript 4 You looks at the JQuery UI Dialog box. 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:

JQ UI Dialog

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 248: Using a SAX Handler in VA Smalltalk

June 20, 2012 8:07:22.653

Today's Smalltalk 4 You looks at the standard development process using VA Smalltalk and ENVY. 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:

SAX.

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 look at a SAX content handler example - to get started, you'll want to load the XML Support and XML Examples. Once you've done that, you can have a look at class AbtXmlBasicExample class, and method #saxExample. You'll also see that there are other examples - you should probably have a look at all of them. Try executing the example code

Example


AbtXmlBasicSamples saxExample


That will drop the XML file that's used first, which you can see below. It then hooks up the component parts (as explained in the last screencast) to parse the file and get a set of objects back:

XML

Results

To see how that all works, take a look at class JrcOrderContentHandler. This class handles the different XML nodes in the file, and creates the appropriate types of objects as they are encountered. If you look at the customized methods (overrides of the placeholders in the superclass), you can see that it's all done via:

  • Creating the proper instance of an object based on the node
  • Managing the current "filling" of instance variables via a stack
  • Catching the end of the current node to close the current object out and pop it off the stack

Content Handler

You'l also need a class for each kind of object (unless you plan on creating a simple Collection/Dictionary setup, which would be easy enough to do in your handler). Here's one of those classes:

Order

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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js4u

JS 4U 167: JQuery UI Buttons

June 19, 2012 8:14:39.176

Javascript 4 U

Today's Javascript 4 You looks at buttons in JQuery UI. 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:

JQ UI Buttons

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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gadgets

Microsoft Surface: First Thoughts

June 18, 2012 20:00:26.637

I've been watching this (the live stream from the MS announcement for Surface). First thoughts:

  • The case is nice, but not 10 minutes of steamy love affair nice
  • A stylus? Let me check the calendar... nope, not 1999
  • Metro. Let me gag. Repeatedly. That has to be the ugliest UI ever, and I'm including the first few versions of Squeak in that comparison....
  • No pricing at this time, or launch dates. I take these as bad signs - MS is back to VaportWare (tm)!

I don't think I'll be rushing out to replace my iPad. Having said that, if this comes out relatively soon, it could be the final nail for RIM - Windows Phones and Surface could take the professional space completely away from them.

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posted by James Robertson

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smalltalk

Bootstrapping Pharo

June 18, 2012 14:20:29.000

Guillermo Polito has been making some progress on his bootstrapping efforts in Pharo. Lots of details at the link, with more specific ones outlned in these three posts:

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posted by James Robertson

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st4u

ST 4U 247: SAX Parser Overview in VA SMalltalk

June 18, 2012 8:13:58.217

Today's Smalltalk 4 You looks at the standard development process using VA Smalltalk and ENVY. 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:

SAX.

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 start looking at SAX driver support in the VA Smalltalk XML codebase. What you'll want to take a look at (after loading the basic XML Support) is the class AbtXmlSaxDefaultHandler. When you create your own sax handler, you'll be subclassing this class:

SAX

Take a look at the methods in the category Abt-ContentHandler category - these are the ones you'll be specializing. We'll take a look at a specific example in the next screencast.

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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podcastAAC

IM 82: Cairo at Work (AAC)

June 17, 2012 2:44:17.646

Welcome to episode 82 of Independent Misinterpretations - a Smalltalk and dynamic language oriented podcast with James Robertson and David Buck.

This week I have a recording from the STIC 2012 conference - Chris Thrgrimsson talking about their use of Cairo in VW:

Chris presented his work on the Cairo Graphics Kit (CGK) for Cincom's VisualWorks. The GCK is a collection of packages that further enhance the CairoGraphics and Pango packages already provided by Cincom. It provides new views, widgets and wrappers that leverage the cairo and Pango bindings. The development effort started out of necessity for more advanced UI graphics while still using familiar VisualWorks UI development tools. The CGK is also a free bundle licensed under LGPL for use in VisualWorks 7.7 and above. Detailed information about the Cairo Graphics Kit can be found at www.mycairographics.com. I'll also explain how the CGK is used within our own products at Lam Research and I'll talk about how we were successful in integrating Cairo into an existing, large scale VisualWorks Smalltalk project without sacrificing the expected quality of our code.

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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podcast

IM 82: Cairo at Work

June 17, 2012 2:43:12.075

Welcome to episode 82 of Independent Misinterpretations - a Smalltalk and dynamic language oriented podcast with James Robertson and David Buck.

This week I have a recording from the STIC 2012 conference - Chris Thrgrimsson talking about their use of Cairo in VW:

Chris presented his work on the Cairo Graphics Kit (CGK) for Cincom's VisualWorks. The GCK is a collection of packages that further enhance the CairoGraphics and Pango packages already provided by Cincom. It provides new views, widgets and wrappers that leverage the cairo and Pango bindings. The development effort started out of necessity for more advanced UI graphics while still using familiar VisualWorks UI development tools. The CGK is also a free bundle licensed under LGPL for use in VisualWorks 7.7 and above. Detailed information about the Cairo Graphics Kit can be found at www.mycairographics.com. I'll also explain how the CGK is used within our own products at Lam Research and I'll talk about how we were successful in integrating Cairo into an existing, large scale VisualWorks Smalltalk project without sacrificing the expected quality of our code.

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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[im82.mp3 ( Size: 17395865 )]

posted by James Robertson

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smalltalk

Cincom Smalltalk Wants Feedback

June 15, 2012 17:34:39.764

Arden Thomas, Cincom's Smalltalk product manager, has asked for feedback on a new text editor that's being built for VW:

We are in the process of revamping and modernizing our text editor, which is used in a number of places in the product. What are your wishes/needs/requirements in a text editor? Any api level access you have dreamed about to accomplish some tasks? Any current restrictions that are an obstacle?

If you subscribe to the VW-Dev or VWNC mailing lists, drop them a line there.

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posted by James Robertson

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st4u

ST 4U 246: Parsing XML in VA Smalltalk

June 15, 2012 10:48:41.990

Today's Smalltalk 4 You starts looking into the XML support 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:

XML.

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 start looking at the XML support in VA Smalltalk - what to load, and how to get started with it. In the Features list, you'll want to load two things:

  • XML Support
  • XML Examples

As a starting point, let's look at the base XML parser - we're going to read in a large XML file (something produced by BottomFeeder).

XML

To get an XML Document, you just need to execute the following (note that we aren't using validation; if you have a schema, you can provide that and turn validation on):


parser := AbtXMLDOMParser newNonValidatingParser.
parser parseURI: 'v:\feeds.xml'.

The argument can be either a file path or URI. You should see something like this if you inspect that:

DOM

That's about it for today - we'll start doing some more involved work with XML over the next few screencasts.

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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