February 2021 - Esug-list - lists.esug.org

Squeak-related Talks this Friday

by Fabio Niephaus

Hi all, Tom and I are going to give two Squeak-related talks at the HPI Research Symposium at SAP this Friday (26 Feb 2021. Tom will talk about a block-based programming environment in Squeak and I'll talk about Polyglot Programming with TruffleSqueak and GraalVM. Also, Jens Mönig is going to give a talk about Snap!. The full program is at: https://webinars.sap.com/hpi-symposium/en/home and feel free to sign up if you're interested. Individual sign up links are at (registration is free): - TruffleSqueak (11am CET): https://webinars.sap.com/ves-id-17800-52961/en/registration.aspx - Block-based Programming (noon CET): https://webinars.sap.com/ves-id-17800-52963/en/registration.aspx - Snap! (11.30am CET): https://webinars.sap.com/ves-id-17800-52962/en/registration.aspx Best regards, Fabio

Feb. 24, 2021

First Apple M1 for Pharo ready for testing

by Stéphane Ducasse

Hello happy Pharoers Today we could access our building where the M1 machine is and Pablo packaged it so that you can test the first version. Pablo wrote a little blog post for you. https://thepharo.dev/2021/02/16/first-apple-m1-pharo-version/ Let us since we do not have the M1 at hand and waiting to be able to make it accessible from our build farm… but we are not responsible for it and we were waiting…. But the crew was fixing other VM glitches. So we will be ready soon to focus on the Jit version. S -------------------------------------------- Stéphane Ducasse http://stephane.ducasse.free.fr / http://www.pharo.org 03 59 35 87 52 Assistant: Aurore Dalle FAX 03 59 57 78 50 TEL 03 59 35 86 16 S. Ducasse - Inria 40, avenue Halley, Parc Scientifique de la Haute Borne, Bât.A, Park Plaza Villeneuve d'Ascq 59650 France

Feb. 16, 2021

Hello from the past

by Stéphane Ducasse

Hi guys Rewatching this videos gave me really good energy. pharo_video1.webm <https://video.fosdem.org/2021/stands/pharo/pharo_video1.webm> https://video.fosdem.org/2021/stands/pharo/ Stef -------------------------------------------- Stéphane Ducasse http://stephane.ducasse.free.fr / http://www.pharo.org 03 59 35 87 52 Assistant: Aurore Dalle FAX 03 59 57 78 50 TEL 03 59 35 86 16 S. Ducasse - Inria 40, avenue Halley, Parc Scientifique de la Haute Borne, Bât.A, Park Plaza Villeneuve d'Ascq 59650 France

Feb. 8, 2021

UK Smalltalk User Group meeting - Wednesday February 24th

by Giovanni Corriga

The next meeting of the UK Smalltalk User Group will be on Wednesday, February 24th. Christian Haider will guide us in a tour of the Amber dialect of Smalltalk and its Silk web framework. In his own words... Amber [1], created by Nicolas Petton, is a Smalltalk implemented in JavaScript running in a web browser. Silk [2], written by the Amber maintainer Herby Vojčík, is a web framework in Amber. I was looking for a good solution for the web for a long time. At the last ESUG, I was bugging everybody about a Smalltalk in the browser, because I decided to redo the frontend of my current project [3] in Smalltalk instead of JavaScript. There were some developments, but only Amber was available. So I tried it for real on a little side project [4] to see if this route is viable - spoiler: it is! Silk, the web framework, caught my attention and I fell in love with it. Silk is very simple, straight forward and powerful, just the properties I love Smalltalk for. A Silk is basically a facade for a DOM node in the browser allowing the programmer to build up and manipulate the DOM in a direct way. Silk is so easy and intuitive that it never stood in the way and just worked. So, I could just concentrate on the complexities of the web (and the app). In this presentation I will walk you through the setup, show you the Amber tools and explore what you can do with Silk. I will try to justify my enthusiasm and appreciation for Silk :-). About me: My name is Christian Haider [5] and I use Smalltalk since the mid-90s. Fortunately, I earn my living with Smalltalk and use it on a daily bases (mostly VisualWorks). I like programming UIs and graphics. My largest open source contribution is a PDF library [6], the most significant one is Values [7]. [1] https://amber-lang.net/ [2] https://smalltalkrenaissance.wordpress.com/2015/06/29/silk-is-just-too-flex… [3] https://unsere-gelder.de/ (in German) [4] https://covidcrt.uber.space/ (sources at https://github.com/ChristianHaider/CoViD19UI) [5] https://christianhaider.de/ (in German) [6] https://wiki.pdftalk.de/doku.php [7] https://wiki.pdftalk.de/doku.php?id=complexvalues Given the current COVID-19 restrictions, this will be an online meeting from home. If you'd like to join us, please sign up in advance on the meeting's Meetup page ( https://www.meetup.com/UKSTUG/events/cbklbryccdbgc/ ) to receive the meeting details. Don’t forget to bring your laptop and drinks! * <https://www.blogger.com/#>*

Feb. 7, 2021

grants Master Internship / offres de stage Master

by Pierre Bommel

Hello, Bonjour, Hola, We are looking for a Master internship to work on Cormas, a simulation platform (https://github.com/cormas/cormas , or see here for our presentation at ESUG: https://hackmd.iscpif.fr/GGwvzBFqRASE5zCzlRwArQ?view) Nous recherchons un stagiaire de Master pour travailler sur Cormas, une plateforme de simulation (https://github.com/cormas/cormas , cf. notre présentation à ESUG: https://hackmd.iscpif.fr/GGwvzBFqRASE5zCzlRwArQ?view) Estamos buscando un estudiante de Maestría para trabajar en Cormas. Voici l'annonce en français (in English below) : https://www.hdigitag.fr/fr/les-offres-de-stage-digitag/ *Simulation participative de la gestion des ressources renouvelables dans des environnements hybrides* *Mots-clé*: Simulation participative, Computer Vision , Smalltalk, Cormas * *Durée souhaitée du stage (nombre de mois):*8 * *Date de début du stage*: 1/02/2021 * *Unité de recherche*: Green, Cirad * *Contact*: Bommel Pierre : bommel(a)cirad.fr * *#DigitAg*: Axe 2 : Innovations en agriculture numérique, Axe 6 : Modélisation et simulation (systèmes de production agricole) / Challenge 1 : Le challenge agroécologique, Challenge 2 : Le phénotypage rapide, Challenge 6 : La gestion des territoires agricoles, Challenge 7 : Intégration de l’agriculture dans les chaînes de valeur, Challenge 8 : Développement agricole au Sud L’ambition d’éliminer les interfaces physiques qui permettent l’interaction avec les machines est une idée ancienne dans le monde de l’informatique qui a pris plusieurs directions. La plus emblématique pour le grand public a émergé en 2005 sous le nom de “projet Natal” repris et démocratisé par Microsoft dans sa dernière version baptisée “Azure Kinect” (2019). Ce capteur détecte les mouvements et les objets dans le champ de vision de l’utilisateur pour produire des résultats dans un logiciel. Il a été abondamment détourné et enrichi depuis ses débuts grand public pour permettre de nouvelles manières d’interagir avec les machines. Par ailleurs, le groupe de chercheurs à l’origine de la création d’une plateforme de modélisation à base d’agents baptisée Cormas [1] fait actuellement face à des besoins accrus d’interactivités dans les simulations participatives. Basée sur le langage Smalltalk, Cormas est développée depuis la fin des années 1990 par une équipe fortement interdisciplinaire. Au-delà des usages traditionnels de la modélisation agents, Cormas se démarque des autres plateformes par des processus originaux de modélisation : l’approche ComMod (pour Companion Modeling : modélisation d’accompagnement [2]), qui vise à proposer des outils permettant de participer activement à la conception d’un modèle, mais aussi de s’immerger dans des situations de jeux interactifs. Le jeu (de plateau ou informatisé) sert alors de support pour échanger sur une situation vécue. En 2012, pour la première fois, l’équipe utilisait un video-projecteur à ultra-courte focale pour projeter sur une table un plateau de jeu. Ce simple changement a induit des comportements radicalement différents leur permettant une interaction beaucoup plus naturelle avec les simulations informatisées. En outre, la configuration spatiale des acteurs favorise les interactions sociales. Mais jusqu’à aujourd’hui, la saisie manuelle par l’animateur des décisions prises par les joueurs reste nécessaire ce qui réduit la fluidité et la spontanéité des interactions. L’équipe en charge du développement de Cormas souhaite investiguer les possibilités offertes par les nouvelles applications liées à la détection d’objets et de mouvements en portant un prototype de simulation participative dans le champ de la simulation hybride entre modèle informatique et jeu physique. Ce travail de preuve de concept appliqué au modèle ReHab (modèle école de ComMod) nécessitera de mettre au point des méthodes de détection fiables d’objets physiques pour être intégrées dans le calcul du nouvel état simulé. Aujourd’hui, Cormas s’appuie sur Pharo (Smalltalk open-source). Cette solution est développée par l’INRIA et par un consortium de chercheurs et d’industriels. La communauté dynamique propose un ensemble de packages permettant de mutualiser le développement de fonctionnalités qui pourraient être mobilisées pour proposer un prototype pour des simulation participative et la détection d’objets *English* : https://www.hdigitag.fr/en/digitag-master2-internship-offers/ *Participatory simulation of renewable resource management in hybrid environments* * *Keywords*: Participatory simulation, Computer Vision , Smalltalk, Cormas * *Duration*: 8 months * *Desired start date*: 1/02/2021 * *Research Unit*: Green, Cirad * *Contact*: Bommel Pierre – bommel(a)cirad.fr * *#DigitAg*: Axe 2,Axe 6 – Challenge 1,Challenge 2 ,Challenge 6 ,Challenge 7, Challenge 8 The ambition to remove the physical interfaces that allow interactions with computers is an old idea in the IT world that took several directions. The most emblematic one for the general public emerged in 2005 under the name of “Project Natal” taken up and democratized by Microsoft in its latest version called “Azure Kinect” (2019). This sensor detects movements and objects in the user’s field of vision to produce results in softwares. It has been abundantly diverted and enriched since its beginnings for the general public to allow new ways of interacting with computers. In addition, the group of researchers behind the development of an agent-based modeling platform called Cormas [1] is currently facing increased needs for interactivity in participatory simulations. Based on the Smalltalk language, Cormas has been developed since the late 1990s by a highly interdisciplinary team. Beyond the traditional uses of agent modeling, Cormas differs from other platforms by innovative modeling processes: the ComMod approach (Companion Modeling [2]), which aims to provide tools to actively participate in the design of a model, but also to immerse oneself in interactive game situations. The game (board or computer game) is then used as a support to exchange on a real-life situation. In 2012, for the first time, the team used an ultra-short focal projector to project a game board on a table. This simple change induced radically different behaviors of the actors allowing them to interact more naturally with computer simulations. In addition, the spatial configuration of the actors favors social interactions. But until today, manual input by the facilitator of the decisions taken by the players remains necessary, which reduces the fluidity and spontaneity of interactions. The team in charge of Cormas’ development wishes to investigate the possibilities offered by new opportunities related to the detection of objects and movements by bringing a prototype of participatory simulation in the field of hybrid simulation between computer model and physical game.This proof of concept work applied to the ReHab model (ComMod’s school model) will require the development of reliable detection methods for physical objects to be integrated into the calculation of the new simulated state. Today, Cormas relies on Pharo (an open-source Smalltalk). This solution is implemented by INRIA and a consortium of researchers and industrialists. The dynamic community proposes a set of packages allowing to mutualize the development of functionalities that could be mobilized to propose a prototype for participative simulation and object detection

Feb. 3, 2021