Smalltalk with James Robertson

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:

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Today we'll take a look at the normal development process in VA Smalltalk using ENVY. The general pattern works as follows:

• Create a Configuration Map
• Create your Application(s) and add them to your configuration map
• Create your classes and extensions with your application(s), versioning and releasing the classes as you develop them
• Leave the Application(s) and Config Map "open", only versioning them as you reach development checkpoints
• As you begin work each day, load the latest open edition of the config map

To start, create the config map:

Now create the Applications you need, and write code inside of them:

Version and release the classes in your Applications, leaving the Applications "open":

Make sure you add all of your Applications to the config map, in the correct order for loading. Also specify the necessary pre-reqs. If you mess this up (i.e., the map won't load), don't worry - you can edit the config map details without having it loaded:

Now, as you begin each working day, load the latest open edition of the config map, with all developers working within the open edition:

You only need to version and release the Applications and Config Map as you reach checkpoints. When and how you reach them will depend on your process, of course - but the process we've sketched here is the one you'll want to follow.

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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