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Redline Smalltalk News

November 9, 2012 23:21:50.479

Saw this on Twitter today from James Ladd:

Redline Smalltalk adds automatic java class adaptor today! Treat any java class just like a Smalltalk class.

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posted by James Robertson

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Latest Cincom Smalltalk Release is Out

November 9, 2012 12:05:56.641

Looks like the latest Cincom Smalltalk release is out, and they are letting customers download it now. This is from Arden Thomas in one of the Cincom Smalltalk mailing lists:

We are pleased to announce that the maintenance releases of ObjectStudio and VisualWorks are now available!

As before, you can request media, or an ftp transfer of the product. For other options, please speak with your account manager.

To request a new release, just go to this link on our website and fill out the form:

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posted by James Robertson

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ST 4U 307: Pinpoint Benchmarking

November 9, 2012 10:23:34.381

Today's Smalltalk 4 You looks at more pinpointed benchmarking in Smalltalk - measuring the execution time of a specific block of code. 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:

Benchmarking.

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 more fine grained benchmarking in Smalltalk - measuring the execution time of a specific block of code. Quite often, the profiling tools tell you where to look, but you then need to dig deeper to figure things out (for instance, the profiler could point you to a specific method, but that method might be long). It's pretty simple - wrap the code in a block, and then use Time>>millisecondsToRun:


results := Time millisecondsToRun: [blockOfCodeToTestHere].

Now, you'll want to run that block a number of times and average the results to get a decent snapshot of what's happening, but that's all there is to it.

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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Pharo Call for Participation FOSDEM 2013

November 9, 2012 9:55:28.430

Spotted in Planet Squeak

" A devroom for the Pharo, Squeak, Amber, GST, Etoilé, Seaside, Moose Smalltalk projects & Newspeak as derived language. Smalltalk environments offer a very high development productivity, unmatched by their successors. Come do some pair programming with us and experience yourself the advantages of a real OO environment"

The meetup will take place Sunday, February 3, 2013, from 9AM until 5PM, building AW. This room has 72 seats, a VGA video projector and wireless internet. More information will be available later.

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posted by James Robertson

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Skyrim DLC Finally Hitting PS3?

November 8, 2012 13:24:24.000

Polygon Reports:

Skyrim content that has been available for the Xbox 360 but delayed for the PlayStation 3 for months might soon be on its way, according to a tweet Skyrim developer Bethesda sent out today. The company tweeted: "To update, we're also close on new Skyrim content for PS3 and PC" and "Thanks to all our fans. We think you'll love the new stuff. We know it takes us time and thanks for all your support and patience!"

I wonder how much Sony regrets the very different architecture they picked for the PS3 at this point - I suspect it's at the heart of a lot of these problems. Not because it's technically inferior, but simply because it's so different from the PC and XBox setup that a proper port has to do more than cross compile...

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posted by James Robertson

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JS 4U 220: Editable Rectangular Overlays

November 8, 2012 7:31:51.540

Javascript 4 U

Today's Javascript 4 You looks at adding an editable overlay to a map. 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:

overlay

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 306: More VA Benchmark Tool Overview

November 7, 2012 4:31:59.084

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:

Benchmarking.

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:


There's one more aspect of the VA Smalltalk benchmark tool to look at. If you want to start at the beginning of this tutorial section, get started here - and then have a look at the second and third installments.

Following on from last time, take a look at the pulldown menu button at the top left of the tool - it turns out that a second set of pre-built benchmarks are available there:.

view

You can run these the same way as we have in the earlier screencasts, and adding new tests to this menu option works as it did for the initial selection

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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AdBlock Plus Ate My CPU

November 6, 2012 14:42:16.000

Over the last week or two, I've noticed that my Mac seemed to be active a lot more often than I thought it should be - and when it was, there was always a "Chrome Worker" eating the CPU. It had gotten to the point where it was impacting the performance of everything, including games. I finally started disabling extensions (I have very few) last night, and sure enough - it was "AdBlock Plus". I turned that off, and I must have gained 10 fps in "Dishonored" (which I play in a Windows VM) immediately.

Chrome also got faster - pages that had been hanging, or taking forever to load, started loading right away (even on crappy hotel wifi).

I'm leaving that extension off - whatever it was doing (and I wasn't seeing fewer ads, that's for sure), it wasn't good.

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posted by James Robertson

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JS 4U 219: Rectangle Overlays on a Map

November 6, 2012 8:27:00.512

Javascript 4 U

Today's Javascript 4 You looks at putting a rectangular overlay on a map 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:

overlay

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 305: Recently Visited in Pharo

November 5, 2012 7:30:28.001

Today's Smalltalk 4 You looks at the "recently visited" support in Pharo. 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:

Recently Visited

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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IM 101: Object Memory Management in VisualWorks (AAC)

November 4, 2012 13:16:49.618

Welcome to episode 101 of Independent Misinterpretations - a Smalltalk and dynamic language oriented podcast with James Robertson and David Buck.

This week we have another recording from the STIC 2012 conference - Andres Valloud talking about memory management in VisualWorks. If you would rather watch the video, head on over to the STIC website.

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 101: Object Memory Management in VisualWorks

November 4, 2012 13:15:36.420

Welcome to episode 101 of Independent Misinterpretations - a Smalltalk and dynamic language oriented podcast with James Robertson and David Buck.

This week we have another recording from the STIC 2012 conference - Andres Valloud talking about memory management in VisualWorks. If you would rather watch the video, head on over to the STIC website.

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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Torsten Bergmann: Smalltalk is cool

November 2, 2012 18:31:31.000

Via Torsten:

A popular german computer magazine (ct') has a special issue on programming. On the title it states: "Cool Languages: Haskell, Smalltalk and D".

posted by James Robertson

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DragonBorn DLC Coming?

November 2, 2012 17:47:18.396

Spotted in Polygon - All

A teaser image for what may be upcoming downloadable content for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim was posted to Bethesda's Twitter account this afternoon, along with the announcement of a full trailer coming Monday, Nov. 5.

I wonder if they'll time it for the one year anniversary of the game's release?

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posted by James Robertson

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ST 4U 304: VA Smalltalk Benchmarking Options

November 2, 2012 13:11:43.175

Today's Smalltalk 4 You goes into more depth on the VA Smalltalk benchmarking tool. 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:

benchmarks.

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 the options in the VA Smalltalk benchmarking tool. If you want to start at the beginning of this tutorial section, get started here - and then have a look at the second installment.

Following on from last time, create a small benchmark test, make sure to save it. Now pull down the "View" menu. Notice the different options? Select them one at a time, try running the test, and see what results you get in the view.

view

Notice which part of the UI changes. Now pull down the "Time" menu - again, try a few of those:

time

Finally, run the tests with a few of the combinations and look at the results:

results

Finally, have a look at the "Results" menu - note that you can save and load benchmarks for later review and comparison.

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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WebSockets and Smalltalk

November 2, 2012 11:11:36.588

Looks like the new release of AidaWeb - for Pharo, Squeak, and VisualWorks - is the first place to see WebSocket support in Smalltalk.

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posted by James Robertson

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