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Proposal for Mock Objects at ESUG 2011
by Dennis Schetinin May 28, 2011

May 28, 2011

Hello! I'd like to explore interest to Mock Object in Smalltalk society. I'm currently working on the topic, preparing a paper and presentation targeting at ESUG 2011. I plan to present Mock Objects technique itself and a framework named Mocketry as a tool helping to apply it in practice. Of course I'll provide a small example to illustrate some of the ideas. Apparently, Mocks technique is not popular tool among Smalltalkers. It even seems (to me), TDD is not as widely used as it could and should be (despite the fact it was born in Smalltalk). I have been using TDD and Mocks for many years in different projects with Smalltalk and other languages. Sometimes it was hard, sometimes I was even giving it up, but by now I think I have sufficient experience to state that TDD in general and Mock Objects specifically do deserve (at least) more attention by smalltalkers. Yes, Smalltalk is great language and it has great tools. This damps some aspects of the problems TDD and Mocks address, but for sure does not remove them totally. More than that, I can say I was most productive in Smalltalk when I used "classic TDD" and mocks in conjunction. So, are other Smalltalkers interested in this topic? Do you think it worth to be presented at the conference? What are the problems you'd like to discuss there? TIA -- Dennis Schetinin

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Re: [Esug-list] Proposal for Mock Objects at ESUG 2011
by simondenier May 28, 2011

May 28, 2011

That's interesting. I recently started to use Cucumber with Rails, which looks like another step in BDD with specs written in look-alike natural language. Hard to beat in terms of readibility, even with the Smalltalk syntax. But that's another topic. http://cukes.info/ On topic I started to read the GOOS book written by two pioneers of mocks, and I think it's a recommended reading on the topic of objects + TDD + mock. Just read the first chapters for now but it's in line with my own conception of objects yet offers some interesting insights about design. I think Tim McKinnon which has been a regular participant of Smalltalk events in the past years might have a word or two on the topic :) http://www.growing-object-oriented-software.com/ -- View this message in context: http://forum.world.st/Proposal-for-Mock-Objects-at-ESUG-2011-tp3554367p3554… Sent from the ESUG mailing list archive at Nabble.com.

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Re: [Esug-list] Fwd: Re: Proposal for Mock Objects at ESUG 2011
by Frank Shearar May 28, 2011

May 28, 2011

On 27 May 2011 21:56, Colin Putney <colin(a)wiresong.com> wrote: > On Fri, May 27, 2011 at 12:42 PM, Frank Shearar <frank.shearar(a)gmail.com> wrote: >> You miss the point of mocks. Mocks are there to allow you to test your >> code quickly and cheaply against things that may not work in a quick >> manner. > > Not likely. Hernán has been around the block and he speaks from long > experience and deep thinking on software design. If you read his post > a little more carefully, you'll see that he distinguishes between test > doubles in general and mocks as a particular form of test double. He > uses test doubles - you don't get 23,000 tests to run in 7 minutes > without them. It's just *mocks* that are mostly unnecessary. Hernan, I didn't mean to bite your head off. Next time I'll pause a bit longer. > Personally, I find that mocks are *very* useful in a few very specific > situations, but they can cause problems it other situations. They're > like a very specialized tool - invaluable when you need it, but kept > in the bottom of the toolbox and not used very often. Where I find > them useful is in testing communication. For example, I'll use a > MockWritestream to throw an exception if the code under test writes > something unexpected into the stream. It's handy when testing code > that writes out files in a particular format, or communicates with > remote systems over the network. It might also be useful to test > communications across formal module boundaries, where it's > particularly important that a specific protocol be used - eg, for > something like Prevalayer. Indeed, and in these cases and the other appropriate use cases I'd like to see a nicely written, widely used, standardised framework precisely so we (I) don't have to write our (my) own. Anyhow, talk's cheap, and once I've finished my current chunk of work I'll try beat SSpec into shape. frank > My favourite testing pattern is TrivialImplementation. Instead of > using a test double or an expensive "real" object, I often create a > cheap/trivial implementation of the objects that collaborate with the > objects I'm testing. For example, Monticello2 has several repository > classes. There are implementations that store code in a single file, > in a directory of files, on a remote machine via sockets, on a web > server via HTTP etc. There's also a trivial implementation that just > uses an in-memory Dictionary for storage. It's a complete > implementation of the repository protocol, and Monticello can use it > "for real", but it's not as robust as the other kinds of repository. > All the repository implementations, including MemoryRepository, have a > suite of tests that ensure that they work correctly. But when I'm > testing other parts of Monticello that interact with a repository, > those tests use a MemoryRepository. > > I know that BDD folks like to talk about testing behaviour rather than > state, but I don't find the distinction useful. Testing state breaks > the encapsulation of the objects under test, and couples the test too > closely to their internal implementation. Testing behaviour using > mocks *does the same thing*; it just restricts the implementation in a > different way. I find it's better to give the implementation a degree > of freedom by testing "results". Figuring out what result you're > looking for can be difficult - it requires thinking about what a > passing test really tells you. > > Here's an example - let's say we we're testing an implementation of > Set. Here's the version that tests state: > > | set | > set := Set new. > set add: 3. > self assert: (set instVarNamed: 'array') = #(nil nil nil 3 nil) > > Here we test behaviour: > > | set | > mock := MockArray new: 5 > mock expect: (Message selector: #at:put: arguments: #(4 3)). > set := Set withArray: mock. > set add: 3. > > I prefer this approach. It gives the implementation a lot of freedom, > while ensuring that it does what we really want: > > | set | > set := Set new. > set add: 3. > self assert: (set includes: 3). > > In short, I agree with Hernán. Mocks can be useful, but they're often > overused. In most cases, they're unnecessary. > > Colin >

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Re: [Esug-list] ESUG SummerTalk - Fuel, binary object serializer
by Marcus Denker May 26, 2011

May 26, 2011

On May 26, 2011, at 9:41 PM, Mariano Martinez Peck wrote: > > > On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 9:29 PM, Yoshiki Ohshima <yoshiki(a)vpri.org> wrote: > BTW, the page (http://rmod.lille.inria.fr/web/pier/software/Fuel) > says: > ... > Gofer new > squeaksource: 'Fuel'; > package: 'ConfigurationOfFuel'; > load. > ((Smalltalk at: #ConfigurationOfFuel) project latestVersion) load: #(Core Tests Benchmarks). > > And there is always an up-to-date build on Hudson: https://pharo-ic.lille.inria.fr/hudson/job/Fuel/ This is automatically rebuild when Pharo 1.3 gets updates (which means 1-2 times per day). (And on commits to the Fuel repository, but this trigger seems to not work right now...) Marcus -- Marcus Denker -- http://www.marcusdenker.de INRIA Lille -- Nord Europe. Team RMoD.

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ESUG SummerTalk - Fuel, binary object serializer
by Martin Dias May 26, 2011

May 26, 2011

Hi folks. I am really happy to announce that ESUG is sponsoring me for Fuel development through the ESUG SummerTalk. I am Martin Dias, a student at Buenos Aires, Argentina. The idea behind this SummerTalk is to implement Fuel, a binary, fast and general-purpose object graph serializer in Pharo<http://www.pharo-project.org/>. It is based on VisualWorks' Parcels ideas. Actually, the project has already started since several months. Tristan Bourgois and I started with the project while doing an internship with RMoD, INRIA <http://rmod.lille.inria.fr/web/pier>. Since a couple of months, Mariano Martinez Peck <http://marianopeck.wordpress.com/> joined the team, and now he is the official mentor in the SummerTalk. ESUG website for SummertTalk: http://www.esug.org/wiki/pier/Promotion/SummerTalk/SummerTalk2011 The website with all the necessary information is here: http://rmod.lille.inria.fr/web/pier/software/Fuel It even includes slides explaining the algorithm. In addition, a paper is in progress. For the moment, Fuel already provides the following features: - Fast pickle format. It is much faster to materialize than to serialize. - Correctly support class reshape (when the class of serialized objects has changed). - Serialize ANY kind of object. For the moment there is no object to our knowledge that we cannot serialize and materialize. - Be able to completely serialize classes and traits (not just a global name). - Support cycles and avoid duplicates in the graph. - Integration to Moose <http://www.moosetechnology.org/> with an extension to export and import their models. - Detection of globals: for example if you serialize Transcript, it is not duplicated and instead managed as a global reference. - Solve common problems like Set rehash. - Buffered writing: we use a buffered write stream for the serialization part (thanks Sven!). - No need of special support from the VM. - Try to have a good object oriented design. - Well tested (about 120 tests, for the moment). - Large set of benchmarks (even benchmarks for Moose extension). And of course, there are a lot features for the future. You can see some of them in the website and some in the issue tracker: http://code.google.com/p/fuel/issues/list We really appreciate all kind of feedback and comments. If you want to try it, check in the website how to do it. It is extremely easy. Once again, I want to thank a lot to ESUG for sponsoring the project. I plan to create a "news" section in the website with some RSS. I will keep you informed. Best regards, Martin

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[[ UK Smalltalk User Group ]] UK Smalltalk User Group Meeting - Monday, May 23rd
by gcorriga May 21, 2011

May 21, 2011

The next meeting of the UK Smalltalk User Group will be on Monday, May 23rd. Tim Mackinnon has recently started looking at JTalk - and how it translates Smalltalk to JavaScript as well as providing the familiar Smalltalk browsers in your web page. It's still a new project, but how does this approach compare to staying native? Come and join us for some interesting smalltalk on this topic. In addition to this, Niall Ross will briefly update us on the upcoming ESUG conference 2011, in Edimburgh. Don't forget that the early registration is now open! We'll meet in our usual venue - the Counting House, close to Bank Station, from 18:30 onwards. -- Posted By gcorriga to [ UK Smalltalk User Group ] on 5/21/2011 10:06:00 AM

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Postdoc position in software engineering at University of Chile in cooperation with INRIA
by Alexandre Bergel May 20, 2011

May 20, 2011

Hi! Some of you may be interesting in the following call: -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Postdoc position in software engineering at University of Chile in cooperation with INRIA A post-doctoral research position is available with the Pleiad Lab (University of Chile) and the RMoD Group (INRIA Lille Nord Europe). The position is scheduled to start in September 2011, but earlier dates are possible. The position is targeted for research on software maintenance and software visualization. Validation of research hypotheses will be carried out using the Pharo programming language. Experience with it, or any other Smalltalk dialect, is a plus (but not necessary). The postdoctoral researcher will be expected to develop independent research initiatives within the scope of the position, design and contribute to the research experiments conducted by Pleiad and RMoD. There is no teaching duty associated with this position. Both Pleiad and RMoD offer a creative, productive and multicultural staff and students, with many collaboration opportunities. Pleiad and RMoD have an extensive expertise and an advanced infrastructure related to software analysis, data mining, testing, meta-modeling and language semantics. The position is funded by INRIA for a period of 12 or 18 months. In order to foster the collaboration between France and Chili, the candidate will have to share his time between Lille, France and Santiago, Chile. The candidate must hold a PhD in computer science. Contact Persons: Alexandre Bergel and Stéphane Ducasse http://pleiad.dcc.uchile.cl http://rmod.lille.inria.fr http://www.pharo-project.org http://www.moosetechnology.org -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= See you in August! Alexandre -- _,.;:~^~:;._,.;:~^~:;._,.;:~^~:;._,.;:~^~:;._,.;: Alexandre Bergel http://www.bergel.eu ^~:;._,.;:~^~:;._,.;:~^~:;._,.;:~^~:;._,.;:~^~:;.

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ESUG 2011 registration is live !
by Niall Ross May 19, 2011

May 19, 2011

The title says it all. £315 buys you the all-included early-bird registration: all 5 conference days, 2 Camp Smalltalk days and the full social event. The link at the top of website main page http://www.esug.org/Conferences/2011 takes you to the registration app link (and the registration FAQ if needed - if anything is not made clear in app or FAQ, by all means let me know). Accommodation =========== The registration list and the conference accommodation room lists are separate, because those who live in Edinburgh, and a few others, will register but not need a room, while others will want to stay on for the festival. (However it makes sense for you to use the same email and password when you sign into both lists: the same email speeds our checking that everyone registered has somewhere to stay, and the same password is one less thing for you to remember.) Room reservations are confirmed if you - are registered, or reserve then register - enter specific arrival and departure dates in the room list (or, for those who are leaving later than the conference, if you specified a definite date in the text box). If you do not give specific dates for arrival and departure, your room reservation remains provisional after you register until you update your room-list entry. (If you don't do that reasonably soon after registering, expect a nagging email. :-) ) FYI, the website accommodation page (and some others) have been rewritten to have more pictures and info. See you in Edinburgh Niall Ross ______________________________________________________________________ This email has been scanned by the MessageLabs Email Security System. For more information please visit http://www.messagelabs.com/email ______________________________________________________________________

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Sponsoring visit of ESUG 2011 for smalltalkers from Russia
by Dennis Schetinin May 19, 2011

May 19, 2011

Hello! Can ESUG help a couple of Russian smalltalkers to visit the conference this year? If this is possible I'll provide more information. TIA -- Dennis Schetinin

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Re: [Esug-list] [ANN] SmallHarbour project
by Davorin Rusevljan May 18, 2011

May 18, 2011

Interesting! Have you maybe considered to base it on the cloud foundry? Davorin Rusevljan http://www.cloud208.com/ On May 17, 2011 6:26 PM, "laurent laffont" <laurent.laffont(a)gmail.com> wrote: On Tue, May 17, 2011 at 5:29 PM, Bernat Romagosa < tibabenfortlapalanca(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > Just a ... Yes, that's why we haven't called it SeasideSomething. We want the project to be open and support several web frameworks. We will start with Seaside though. Laurent. > > > 2011/5/17 Romain Verduci <contact(a)romain-verduci.com> >> >> We actually have www.seasideho... _______________________________________________ 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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