October 2010 - Esug-list - lists.esug.org

Final Reminder: Mentor Summit Reservations and POs
by Dennis Schetinin Dec. 24, 2010

Dec. 24, 2010

In connection with http://groups.google.com/group/google-summer-of-code-mentors-list/browse_th…: I'd like to ask if ESUG submited a "request for payment POs"? -- Dennis Schetinin

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Few thoughts about Google Summer of Code
by Dennis Schetinin Nov. 1, 2010

Nov. 1, 2010

… and observations …and questions … mostly inspired by GSoC Mentor Summit 1. Mentor Summit was a great event! I didn't expect it to be THIS :) Very pleasant …and very hard for me: so many people, language and culture shock :) Great experience for me personally. Thank ESUG for choosing and sending me there. 2. Bad news: Smalltalk is not popular. Well, it's not that new actually, we know it. But I didn't manage to fix it :) Seriously: actually, it looks like everybody knows Smalltalk (they know it existed I mean; few knows it still exists), but it is treated like a black and white movie. People say "wow! it's cool" and go to see Avatar. :( So developers don't take Smalltalk seriously. We (Smalltalkers) know it's a mistake. But we have to show that for others. And I found myself unable to do that there. I found language and, more likely, culture barrier is too big to overcome. I didn't manage to set up a two-way communication with others. So I listened mostly. 3. And I've heard many interesting ideas… apparently, organizational ideas mostly. I need some time to process them. So, for now I'll just outline some directions… 4. Did we summarize our GSoC results? I thought I've missed them, but apparently we didn't do it. At least I found only this page http://code.google.com/p/google-summer-of-code-2010-esug/downloads/list. I didn't care much before, but now I think it is very important to look closer at the projects we did within GSoC, understand where we succeeded; where we failed; did we benefit and could we get more; make some plans for the future... etc. 5. I think we should pay more attention to GSoC. It is very important for our small society. Of course, we can't be sure smalltalkers will be invited again next year. (One of the things I tried to understand at summit but still I don't: how does Google select mentor organizations?) But this work will be very helpful, useful, advantageous… what ever. 6. We should be more serious about monitoring and controlling our projects. Since money are involved here, we have a right to. That's money from Google, but still. I think it should be a bit different from the way free projects are evolved within Smalltalk society. Since we have such opportunity we have to benefit as much as we can. 7. Smalltalk gives me competitive advantages. For that matter I don't want to :) but now I understand even better: we have to promote Smalltalk. I know everybody knows that, but I still want to state it once again. And promoting is not only about advertising and praising. We should be more open. We should find a way to start some cooperative projects with other societies/languages. I don't know how to do it. And it's extremely hard for me as I believe in Smalltalk superiority :) But still we have if we don't want Smalltalk to die. In general, it looks like making Smalltalk more open should be our priority, and this is one of the few ways to enhance prestige of Smalltalk among developers. -- Dennis Schetinin

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Re: [Esug-list] How to query Amazon information via a web service?
by Mirko Kiefer Oct. 31, 2010

Oct. 31, 2010

Stephane, I haven't looked at the cloudfork code in detail but I'm sure you can reuse the generic part of setting up the communication. All Amazon Web Services communicate in the same way - its basically about signing your requests with an HMAC signature using your secret access-token. Each API then defines certain query parameters. To do your ISBN queries you can have a look here: http://docs.amazonwebservices.com/AWSECommerceService/latest/DG/index.html?… You will just need to supply the parameters IdType=ISBN and ItemId for the actual ISBN. Depending of the amount or kind of information you want to get you can specifiy certain "ResponseGroups" in the request e.g. "Large" or "Medium". Hope that helps. Mirko On 10/31/10 6:27 PM, Stéphane Ducasse wrote: > Thanks mirko > I will read that ;) > Like that I can learn something. Did you check cloudfork? do you know if there are some services communication I could reuse? > > Stef > > On Oct 31, 2010, at 6:13 PM, Mirko Kiefer wrote: > >> Hi Stephane, >> >> I wrote a simple client for the Amazon Web Services in Node.js that allows you to do this kind of queries. >> The implementation is quite straightforward - porting it to Smalltalk shouldn't be much work. >> http://github.com/mirkok/Node-AWS >> >> Mirko >> >> On 10/31/10 5:51 PM, Stéphane Ducasse wrote: >>> Hi guys >>> >>> I would like to get book information from an ISBN and I would like to query amazon. >>> Does any of you an experience with that and some pointers? >>> >>> Stef >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Esug-list mailing list >>> Esug-list(a)lists.esug.org >>> http://lists.esug.org/mailman/listinfo/esug-list_lists.esug.org

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Re: [Esug-list] How to query Amazon information via a web service?
by Stéphane Ducasse Oct. 31, 2010

Oct. 31, 2010

Thanks! I will have a look now. On Oct 31, 2010, at 6:04 PM, Georg Heeg wrote: > Stef, > > One of the initial seaBreeze examples we showed at ESUg in Amsterdam. The > demo still is part of seaBreeze one-click image. Just download seaBreeze > from seaBreeze.heeg.de and have a look. > > Georg > > Georg Heeg eK, Dortmund und Köthen, HR Dortmund A 12812 > Tel. +49-3496-214328, Fax +49-3496-214712 > > -----Ursprüngliche Nachricht----- > Von: esug-list-bounces(a)lists.esug.org > [mailto:esug-list-bounces@lists.esug.org] Im Auftrag von Stéphane Ducasse > Gesendet: Sonntag, 31. Oktober 2010 17:52 > An: ESUG Mailing list > Betreff: [Esug-list] How to query Amazon information via a web service? > > Hi guys > > I would like to get book information from an ISBN and I would like to query > amazon. > Does any of you an experience with that and some pointers? > > Stef > _______________________________________________ > Esug-list mailing list > Esug-list(a)lists.esug.org > http://lists.esug.org/mailman/listinfo/esug-list_lists.esug.org > >

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How to query Amazon information via a web service?
by Stéphane Ducasse Oct. 31, 2010

Oct. 31, 2010

Hi guys I would like to get book information from an ISBN and I would like to query amazon. Does any of you an experience with that and some pointers? Stef

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Re: [Esug-list] Few thoughts about Google Summer of Code
by mkobetic＠cincom.com Oct. 29, 2010

Oct. 29, 2010

"Paolo Bonzini"<bonzini(a)gnu.org> wrote: > It's definitely a step towards that, though. Does your experience with > CVST suggest that it's better to do both steps at the same time? Fair enough, but I would hope that whatever solution is chosen, it is open towards eventually being able to support cross-dialect projects. > I would be worried that including in an "initial battle plan" an > editor-friendly syntax would lead to endless discussions and no code > produced. Yes, but I'm more worried about "real" vs "fake" integration, than I am about particulars of a syntax. With fake integration all you'll get with git is push, pull and commit, leaving all the rest of the capabilities behind. That will not make us a good team player.

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Re: [Esug-list] Few thoughts about Google Summer of Code
by mkobetic＠cincom.com Oct. 29, 2010

Oct. 29, 2010

"Paolo Bonzini"<bonzini(a)gnu.org> wrote: > Ability to work seamlessly with people that use the tools outside > Smalltalk is already a big step forward. It will often do even if the > integration with the tool is kind of fake. Sure, but that just helps you to do part of a project in smalltalk, it doesn't help much with attracting new people to Smalltalk.

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Re: [Esug-list] Few thoughts about Google Summer of Code
by mkobetic＠cincom.com Oct. 29, 2010

Oct. 29, 2010

"Paolo Bonzini"<bonzini(a)gnu.org> wrote: > On 10/29/2010 04:15 PM, mkobetic(a)cincom.com wrote: > > Another significant hurdle was that each dialect has it's own fileout > > format. CVST allowed using SIF as well for that reason, but that's > > foreign to every dialect. Would you be happy to commit your sources > > to git in SIF? > > I don't think inter-dialect communication is a problem. Any dialect > should be able to use whatever it prefers, like XML for VW or chunks for > Squeak or its own syntax for GST. Did CVST actually rely on SIF or did > it just "allow" using it? No, it had configurable "source codec" for that reason, so you could use native chunks or SIF (when I started, VW 5i wasn't out yet, so no XML). But SIF was critical when we had our our cross-dialect workshop with Steve Wart (Dolphin) and Brian Hogan (VA) at Camp Smalltalk in Colorado Springs. And we did get it going between the three dialects there. Anyway, yes, for dialect specific project, SIF wouldn't be necessary, but I feel we'd be missing an opportunity here. If you commit your project into something like github in a portable format, the chances of the project taking off in another dialect as well are greatly increased IMO. It may actually help our community to stop diverging so much and promote more collaboration. Look how adopting monticello in Gemstone helped the portability of Seaside between the two dialects. Why raise arbitrary barriers ? Another point I'd like to emphasize, if we want to attract people from other languages claiming integration with these VCS, it's not enough to merely use them as just a back-end store for our source. We have to step outside of our comfort zone and adopt the development model that comes with it (and it might actually do us good, this new crop of VCS has some neat stuff). We need to learn the tool and use the tool for version-control, not just hide it away and only push it from time to time with a ten foot pole. Otherwise people will see right away that we're just faking the integration. So in VW I wouldn't try to swap git in as a just a different "database back end" behind Store. I think it needs to be full on file based VC integration (ala CVST or whatever) that can run side by side with Store if you wanted.

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Re: [Esug-list] Few thoughts about Google Summer of Code
by mkobetic＠cincom.com Oct. 29, 2010

Oct. 29, 2010

"Paolo Bonzini"<bonzini(a)gnu.org> wrote: > For the VCS, I've always been surprised there's no git or svn backend > for Monticello. It wouldn't seem _too_ hard to have a directory per > package and replace each .mcz file with a commit in that directory. > > Alternatively, there's actually very little GST-specific code in > http://github.com/timfel/gitocello (a Squeak+Monticello <-> GST+git > bridge), so if someone wants to play with it... I played with this back in 2000, when VW didn't have it's own VCS yet. Some might remember a project called CVST (http://cvstproj.sourceforge.net/) Ultimately I stopped working on it, because VW got Store, and Squeak got Monticello shortly after, and each of the dialect specific VCSs had some interesting features that CVS (back then) couldn't provide (not easily at least). The communities clearly valued the additional capabilities that their solutions provided. I tried to push CVST as a cross-dialect solution, but there seemed to be little interest in that. Another significant hurdle was that each dialect has it's own fileout format. CVST allowed using SIF as well for that reason, but that's foreign to every dialect. Would you be happy to commit your sources to git in SIF? Anyway, one aspect that I liked about CVST was that the image could be treated as a sort of "fancy editor" for the working copy of your code in the working directory, which might appeal to newcomers from other languages too. It's not tied to CVS in any way, you could use svn or git with it just as well (Here are slides that talk a bit more about how it worked http://www.slideshare.net/mkobetic/01-stscvst) It would require some update to plug into current packaging structures (e.g. packages in VW, it was integrated with parcels back then), but that wouldn't be difficult. Some level of dialect specific tool integration would be needed (I wrote some for VW, but those would mostly be replaced by rather simple RB extensions), overall I would expect it to be much work. What I wonder about though, if we did bring it up to date (or came up with something completely new), would people actually use it ? Because if most would still stick to their Store, Monticello X, Envy, etc, presumably because of some cool feature that they'd miss, the "yet another VCS" would be just a waste of time. But maybe times have changed and we, Smalltalkers, are more likely to accept something like svn or git even if we have to give up some of the niceties of our home-brew solutions.

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Re: [Esug-list] Few thoughts about Google Summer of Code
by Damien Pollet Oct. 29, 2010

Oct. 29, 2010

On Oct 29, 2010, at 12:19, Serge Stinckwich wrote: > But comparing to Ruby, there is no standard UI in Ruby and this not > really annoying for the people, because they deploy their application > on the web. Yes, but Ruby has really nice bindings to at least GTK and Cocoa. Applications developed using that look just like their C / ObjC counterparts, they do not pop an image window, etc -- Damien Pollet type less, do more [ | ] http://people.untyped.org/damien.pollet

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