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

Re: [Esug-list] Few thoughts about Google Summer of Code

by mkobetic＠cincom.com

"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.

Oct. 29, 2010

Re: [Esug-list] Few thoughts about Google Summer of Code

by Paolo Bonzini

On 10/29/2010 05:34 PM, Bert Freudenberg wrote: > On 29.10.2010, at 16:40, mkobetic(a)cincom.com wrote: > >> 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. > > Indeed. It might even be necessary to support out-of-the-image > development. That can come later. Chunk format is actually passable if you only have to do that every once in a while (because you use the IDE). 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. Paolo

Oct. 29, 2010

Re: [Esug-list] Few thoughts about Google Summer of Code

by Bert Freudenberg

On 29.10.2010, at 16:40, mkobetic(a)cincom.com wrote: > 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. Indeed. It might even be necessary to support out-of-the-image development. That includes ditching chunk format in favor of a syntax someone might actually want to write (like GST). - Bert -

Oct. 29, 2010

Re: [Esug-list] Few thoughts about Google Summer of Code

by mkobetic＠cincom.com

"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.

Oct. 29, 2010

Re: [Esug-list] Few thoughts about Google Summer of Code

by Paolo Bonzini

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? Paolo

Oct. 29, 2010

Re: [Esug-list] Few thoughts about Google Summer of Code

by mkobetic＠cincom.com

"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.

Oct. 29, 2010

Re: [Esug-list] Few thoughts about Google Summer of Code

by Paolo Bonzini

On 10/29/2010 03:27 PM, Damien Pollet 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 They're not used very much though. I see more Shoes than GTK with Ruby I think. There's also a price to pay---GNU Smalltalk has nice GTK+ bindings, but when they crash in the bowels of GtkTreeModel you're left alone in gdb. :) Paolo

Oct. 29, 2010

Re: [Esug-list] Few thoughts about Google Summer of Code

by Georg Heeg

Actually SeaBreeze does exactly what you propose here. For details see seabreeze.heeg.de. It is a UI Editor and framework on top of Seaside. 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 Frank Shearar Gesendet: Freitag, 29. Oktober 2010 11:52 An: ESUG Mailing list Betreff: Re: [Esug-list] Few thoughts about Google Summer of Code On Fri, Oct 29, 2010 at 10:17 AM, Graham McLeod <mcleod(a)iafrica.com> wrote: > Hi Dennis, Geert, Adres, Serge and other commenters.. > > Doing good UI's is still quite hard and labour intensive - Seaside > provides a great framework, but we are still working pretty much at > the level of HTML / CSS concepts. I would like to see a layer > describing logical data structures e.g. List, Tree, Matrix, Document > (sequenced set of objects), Model (spatially arranged and possibly > connected objects) and a visual editor (or very high level DSL) that > allows composition of these into user interfaces with a publish / > subscribe event model and choice of suitable controls and widgets > based upon the logical data type. (this one is probably a bit too big > for a GSOC but may be tackled in pieces. ) Squeak uses ToolBuilder to describe UI elements - lists, buttons, code panes, menus, and the like. Has anyone considered writing a SeasideToolBuilder to generate HTML/CSS? frank > Hope some of this makes sense. > Welcome feedback and comments. > Best regards, > > Graham > > Dennis Schetinin wrote: > > and observations and questions mostly inspired by GSoC Mentor > Summit > > 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. > 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. > 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 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/lis > t. 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. > 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. > 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. > 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 > > _______________________________________________ > Esug-list mailing list > Esug-list(a)lists.esug.org > http://lists.esug.org/mailman/listinfo/esug-list_lists.esug.org > > _______________________________________________ > Esug-list mailing list > Esug-list(a)lists.esug.org > http://lists.esug.org/mailman/listinfo/esug-list_lists.esug.org > > _______________________________________________ Esug-list mailing list Esug-list(a)lists.esug.org http://lists.esug.org/mailman/listinfo/esug-list_lists.esug.org

Oct. 29, 2010

Re: [Esug-list] Few thoughts about Google Summer of Code

by Damien Pollet

On Oct 29, 2010, at 14:29, Davorin Rusevljan wrote: > On Fri, Oct 29, 2010 at 2:23 PM, Paolo Bonzini <bonzini(a)gnu.org> wrote: >> On 10/29/2010 02:12 PM, Geert Claes wrote: >>> Sounds very interesting, what would the main advantages be of using a GIT >>> backend? >> >> It is what you use for other assets. So the Monticello git-backed repo >> could be simply a subtree of the project-wide repo. > > There would be also one trivial, but possibly important social aspect. > Some Smalltalk projects might be hosted on GitHub, and become visible > to larger audience. ...and benefit from github's issue tracker, from a VCS that handles branches in a way that actually makes sense, from any continuous integration tool that you can trigger on post-commit hooks, and so on. The hard point is how to fit in the file-based crowd, without imposing too many idiosyncrasies, but without loosing the power of smalltalk-specific tools. -- Damien Pollet type less, do more [ | ] http://people.untyped.org/damien.pollet

Oct. 29, 2010

Re: [Esug-list] Few thoughts about Google Summer of Code

by Damien Pollet

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

Oct. 29, 2010