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stic13

STIC 2013 Video Home

June 14, 2013 14:29:25.325

I'll be posting all of the videos from STIC 2013 to here on this site, and also to my YouTube channel. If you just want to listen, the audio-only will be showing up in the regular podcast feed, but probably not as fast as the videos will appear.

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posted by James Robertson

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st4u

ST 4U 402: VA Smalltalk Roadmap (STIC 2013)

June 14, 2013 14:00:39.745

Today's Smalltalk 4 You is a video from STIC 2013 - John O'Keefe giving the VA Smalltalk roadmap. 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:

VA Roadmap

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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Enclosures:
[st4u402-iPhone.m4v ( Size: 86365816 )]

posted by James Robertson

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stic13

STIC 2013 - Audio and Video

June 13, 2013 21:02:36.938

I'll be posting the videos from STIC 2013 to my normal st4u stream - so if you subscribe, or follow me on YouTube, you'll see them there. I'll be posting audio to my normal podcast feed, but that will be interspersed with the podcasts Dave and I do regularly. Expect to see at least one video a week, and the audio a bit less regularly than that.

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posted by James Robertson

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stic13

ObjectStudio GUI

June 12, 2013 14:37:03.260

Cincom is also working on the ObjectStudio GUI - Andreas Hiltner and Dirk Verleyson are covering that. The main goals are to update the implementation, and surface as much of it as possible into Smalltalk (it's mostly in C now).

The framework is separate from the old stuff - new class at the top mapping to a window, called UIView. Ultimately, this will be integrated with a new GUI designer as well, but that's further out.

Old GUI used GDI, new GUI is using GDI+ (C++ based). Adds some features not in OS - anti-aliasing, floating poit coords, gradient shading, and a lot more. It's got a flat API, so it's accessible from C. It's a business class rendering framework, not a high speed one like DirectX.

Switching from Trigger Events to Announcements. Impemented with tests as well. The rest of the talk went through a demo of what's been done - it looks pretty good so far. Interesting dogfooding aspect of this - Dirk is the first user of it, as he's building tools for ObjectStudio. New API for opening a window is familiar for ObjectStudio - should be easy to migrate to.

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posted by James Robertson

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stic13

Cincom Smalltalk Roadmap

June 12, 2013 13:38:05.991

Gemtalk and Instantiations already did theirs; today it's Cincom's turn, and Arden Thomas is up there giving us the roadmap. Things that are happening that impact both VW and OS:

  • 64 bit VMs revamped
  • Windows 64 bit
  • GC improvements
  • Atomic Loading
  • Delay alternatives
  • Store revamped - now uses Glorp under the covers - improved store "GC"
  • New merge engine, new comparsion tool
  • Latest Seaside integrated
  • Now supports external encryption (lots of interesting issues with the US government on that)
  • Xtreams is moving forward, improvements to Timestamp
  • New webserver (SiouX) in VisualWorks, using xtreams. Should be faster and simpler than old Opentalk based server. Rehosted Seaside and WS* to use this
  • New web app framework, AppeX
    • Modern web framework
    • HTML5, JS, Ajax, JSON, XHR
    • Auto session management
    • Lightweight, flexible
  • Polycephaly has been renamed to MatriX (again, using xtreams)

Future Store improvements

  • Less memory usage
  • Better method source handling
  • Better external file handling
  • Make it faster

Some stuff he won't tell us yet.

Now, ObjectStudio

Improvements to modeling and mapping tool coming. Windows 8 certification coming. Improving fonts, trying to get rid of a lot of the old "done in C" things from ObjectStudio, move them to the image. Unicode support for DB2. Updated and improved ODBC support. There is an ongoing project to improve the widget set in ObjectStudio. Upcoming release will have new GUI work into preview, and will use the VW COM code, which has seen more work recently.

Now the VW specific stuff. Improvements to the Project Launcher. COM updates, including COM 64 bit. Better ActiveX integration. Some JIT improvements on the Unix and Windows platforms, ability to have the MS specific DLLs statically linked to the VM. Skins (native looking widgets, using the images for the platforms for the widgets) is going into preview, updated keyboard handling is coming. Totally revamped command system for that. Much better integration with Macs due to that work. Improved text editor (check out our podcast with Michael Lucas-Smith - part 1 and part 2 on that).

Finally, some demos of the skins work, the editor work, and the AppeX work

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posted by James Robertson

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stic13

STIC 2013 Impressions

June 11, 2013 20:52:34.896

We'll be recording a podcast tomorrow after the final talk here at STIC 13 - with our perspective on what we saw and heard. It'll be posted on Sunday, and over the course of the next few months, the audio and video for the talks will be appearing in my regular audio and video feeds. Stay tuned :)

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posted by James Robertson

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stic13

Gemstone Updates

June 11, 2013 13:32:34.833

First big news - Gemstone/S 32 is no longer EOL. It's not being enhanced much (all the work is on the 64 bit rev), but it's a live product still. The older 64 bit rev is 2.4.5.3 - it's stable, with all work going into the 3.x stream they've got out. The latest - 3.1.0.3 is the latest 3.x release, with 3.2 coming out in December 2013. New stuff:

  • OpenLDAP
  • OpenSSL
  • ZLib
  • LiblCU
  • Regular Expressions
  • Support for Solaris 11
  • More MT work in reclaiming sessions
  • More Unicode support
  • New work on the indexing system
  • Improved encryption support, including AES
  • new hot standby support
  • Thread safe GCI support coming
  • Adding some protections against DOS attacks to netldi and stone
  • Improvements to VSD

On the server side, no support changes. Client side, still support latest two versions of Cincom and Instantiations Smalltalks. Licensing - perpetual, subscription was discontinued by VMWare, now coming back. Also have VAR licenses. The free (web) edition is still out, and they intend to make it more fine grained.

MagLev - In "Strategic Planning" mode. No work has been done for 2 years at GS, but there has been work at HPI. To get real, would have to support Ruby 1.9, which is not there yet. The future on this is not clear.

posted by James Robertson

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stic13

Gemtalk at STIC 2013

June 11, 2013 12:58:18.358

So we just found out that 20 percent of the world's shipping moves on a Gemstone/S powered app, the one that started at OOCL - and Dan Ware tells us that it's going to grow to more of the shipping companies. That's why they have a good future laid out in front of them :)

Company name is now Gemtalk Systems - they can be found on the web at gemtalksystems.com

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posted by James Robertson

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general

Bike Share Plus Helmet Mandate

June 10, 2013 17:52:22.352

Sure, helmets are a good idea. However, if you mandate their use, don't be surprised if the actual usage of your system is low. Think about it - if you're a tourist in NYC, how likely are you to have a helmet on hand? If you don't, do you actually want to buy something you the have to cart around the rest of the day?

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posted by James Robertson

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games

Market Reality

June 10, 2013 17:15:38.552

Well, at E3, EA says that the next Dragon Age game will be released in 2014 on the next gen consoles. However - even if DA2 didn't put you off your BioWare feed, this game is not a reason to get a next gen console:

Yes Dragon Age Inquisition is coming to Xbox 360, XBox One, PS3, PS4, AND PC.

posted by James Robertson

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stic13

Smalltalk on the JVM

June 10, 2013 17:01:18.698

I did a podcast with Mark Roos last year on this - running Smalltalk (Digitalk 2.0 in this case) on the JVM. Unlike a lot of the other efforts in that direction, it's actually in production

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posted by James Robertson

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stic13

What's New in VA 8.5.2

June 10, 2013 13:34:18.035

Looks like there's new stuff to cover on the screencasts -

  • Monticello Importer, integrated with ENVY
  • Code Completion added to inspectors
  • Better support for high latency WAN connections to ENVY
  • Packaging Instructions for Seaside (IC support)
  • Various Tool Improvements
  • TimeZone Support, in DateAndTime class - very seamless with existing code
  • Added System>>processId to get process ID from Windows
  • Rebar Control in the Composition Editor
  • Glorp updated to 0.4.190
  • Updated Web Services
  • Support for Windows 8 and Ubuntu 12
  • More online doc, including ST4U videos

What's Coming Next?

  • New Text Editor coming - atop Scintilla - exposes full Scintilla API to Smalltalk, used in browsers, inspectors, workspaces
  • Date and Time picker added from Windows common controls
  • Various Development Tool improvements
  • Some old limitations from EMSRV (multi-processor warnings on Windows, size limitations on Linux) removed.
  • Monticello Importer Refinements - relevant metadata arranged where it makes sense
  • Can prefix all windows with an image "short name" - so that multiple images are easily distinguished by the mark one eyeball
  • Cross development (build on one platform, deploy on another) improvements
  • Possibly Announcements and Roassal
  • HTTP Multipart message support (mostly for Seaside
  • Glorp updated to latest version in Cincom Smalltalk public repository
  • Installation with InstallShield (Windows), RPM (Linux)
  • Further out - GTK+ on Linux
  • Redesigned Change Browser and Merge Tools
  • TCP/IP VI
  • Open SSL Wrappers (full)
  • IGC on 64 bit Smalltalk

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posted by James Robertson

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stic13

I've Been There

June 10, 2013 12:52:46.717

I feel for John O'Keefe - his machine blue screened when he tried to hook it up to the conference AV. I had a kerne panic at ESUG a few years back, so I know what's that's like.

John got things sorted faster than I did, so that's good :)

posted by James Robertson

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games

X-Boned

June 9, 2013 18:09:06.577

Chris Plante of Polygon nails it on the XBox One:

After a month of vague corporate comments from Microsoft executives, we now know the Xbox One's game licensing policy was written from the ground up for companies. It's aggressively anti-consumer and anti-middle class, and it outright ignores underprivileged gamers. It's gross, despicable, greedy, pathetic, cowardly and out of touch with a growing global resentment for corporations.

Yeah, a gaming PC hooked up to the TV to run Steam Big Picture is looking better and better....

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posted by James Robertson

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stic13

Smalltalk Stuff this Week

June 8, 2013 15:40:59.949

I'll be at the STIC conference this week - so no podcast tomorrow, and the daily screencasts are on hiatus for the week. Lots of content will be ready for posting after that though, so stay tuned :)

posted by James Robertson

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st4u

ST 4U 401: Bad Choices with DNU

June 7, 2013 11:33:14.757

Today's Smalltalk 4 You looks at how you can get into trouble with message construction and #doesNotUnderstand:. 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:

DNU and perform.

If you have trouble viewing that directly, you can click here to download the video directly. If you need the video in a Windows Media format, then download that here.

You can also watch it on YouTube:


Today we'll take a look at a common pattern in Smalltalk development that can get you into real trouble - overriding #doesNotUnderstand: to construct messages and send them via #perform: - like this:


doesNotUnderstand: aMessage
	| string |
	
	string := aMessage selector asString.
	self doOp: string

The problems with this are twofold - first, your API is effectively hidden - using standard senders/implentors searches, you don't find it. For follow on developers, it's as if your API doesn't exist. Second, you'll probably end up implementing something like this:


doOp: aString
	|msg |

	msg := (aString, ':') asSymbol.
	(self class allSelectors includes: msg)
		ifFalse: [^self].
	self perform: msg with: 1

Which swallows your exceptions. This kind of code seems very cool the first time you write it, but do yourself a favor - avoid it. There are uses for DNU (mostly when creating proxy objects) - but you should think carefully before using this kind of pattern

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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Enclosures:
[st4u401-iPhone.m4v ( Size: 2526268 )]

posted by James Robertson

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