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Re: [vwnc] JNIPort - is there anyone willing to maintain it?
by Joachim Geidel Sept. 25, 2025

Sept. 25, 2025

Dear Thomas, I definitely do not see the maintenance of JNIPort as enhancing Cincom’s products. You wouldn’t consider writing an open source application running on MS Windows or an open source library for developers who are working on Windows being an „enhancement“ of Windows, thus benefiting MS, or would you? While Cincom was so kind to including it as a contribution in the VisualWorks distribution, it has also been available for Dolphin Smalltalk, Pharo, and VASt in a long time. JNIPort has always been developed completely independently from any of the companies offering Smalltalk IDEs. JNIPort works on VW 8.3, as far as I know, so there’s no work to be done at all for making it work for VWNC users. But even if VWNC is no longer actively supported by Cincom, there may still be Cincom customers who are interested in using JNIPort on one of the more recent VisualWorks versions, and who could have an interest in adapting it to that version. In such a case, a JNIPort user’s contribution in the form of an update would be uploaded directly to the Cincom public repository. I don’t see how this would mean „a lot of time and effort“ for a potential maintainer of JNIPort apart from updating some small parts of the JNIPort documentation. And then, there’s Pharo, which has an active community, and which I suspect to have more active users now than Cincom Smalltalk. Migrating JNIPort to Pharo 14 with some help from the Pharo community shouldn’t be a lot of work. I am simply looking for someone willing to keep the strings together and to prevent that JNIPort accidentally disappears, not someone who invests a lot of time and effort in active development. My ideas about the maintainer’s role: Someone wants to use it, work has to be done to make it work, so they do it themselves and tell the maintainer about it, who then updates the docs. Google switches off Google Sites - the maintainer moves the documentation to another place. And that’s more or less it, unless the maintainer wants to have some fun with enhancing JNIPort for some reason, just as I did when I ported it to VW and Pharo just because I thought that might be interesting and fun (and it was). Joachim > Am 24.09.2025 um 19:31 schrieb Thomas Sattler <tomsattler(a)gmail.com>: > > Joachim, > > Cincom has basically abandoned the VWNC distribution. The "latest" version one can obtain without paying for a license is VW 8.3, which was released in 2017. > > it's hard to imagine people spending a lot of time and effort enhancing a system that old, when the vendor isn't committed to it. I'm sure Cincom is committed to the paying customers, but why should we help with that? > > --Tom > > > > On Wed, Sep 24, 2025 at 4:36 AM Joachim Geidel <joachim.geidel(a)posteo.de <mailto:joachim.geidel@posteo.de>> wrote: >> Dear fellow Smalltalkers, >> >> JNIPort is an interface from Smalltalk to the Java VM which was originally developed by Chris Uppal for Dolphin Smalltalk. It enables Smalltalk applications to use software written in Java seamlessly, locally and with low overhead, without resorting to network based interfaces like e.g. using microservices. Documentation is at https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://sites.google.com/site/jniport/__;!!DZ3f… . >> >> I have ported JNIPort to VisualWorks and Pharo, and Ben van Dijk, Adriaan van Os and Rolf van der Vleuten have ported it to VASt (https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://vastgoodies.com/projects/JNIPort__;!!DZ… ). >> >> The last time I really worked on JNIPort was in 2014, if I remember correctly. Now that I am retired and haven’t written a single line of Smalltalk code in five years, I am wondering if there is anybody willing to take over. >> >> I haven’t had any enquiries about JNIPort since 2020, so the task would be easy: >> - Take over ownership of the documentation site. >> - Possibly move the source code for the Pharo version to Gitlab (it is still in the ancient SmalltalkHub repository). >> - Optionally integrate any changes from JNIPort users, e.g. when they adapt it to more recent versions of VisualWorks or Pharo. There hasn't been any community input since 2017 (or was it 2019?). >> >> If nobody takes over, then JNIPort will be one of the many abandoned open source projects and disappear sooner or later when SmalltalkHub, the Cincom Public Repository and the documentation site are switched off. >> >> On the other hand, I do not know if there is actually anybody using JNIPort. If it has no users, there is no harm in its disappearance, and maintaining it would be a waste of time. >> >> Cheers >> Joachim Geidel

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JNIPort - is there anyone willing to maintain it?
by Joachim Geidel Sept. 24, 2025

Sept. 24, 2025

Dear fellow Smalltalkers, JNIPort is an interface from Smalltalk to the Java VM which was originally developed by Chris Uppal for Dolphin Smalltalk. It enables Smalltalk applications to use software written in Java seamlessly, locally and with low overhead, without resorting to network based interfaces like e.g. using microservices. Documentation is at https://sites.google.com/site/jniport/. I have ported JNIPort to VisualWorks and Pharo, and Ben van Dijk, Adriaan van Os and Rolf van der Vleuten have ported it to VASt (https://vastgoodies.com/projects/JNIPort) The last time I really worked on JNIPort was in 2014, if I remember correctly. Now that I am retired and haven’t written a single line of Smalltalk code in five years, I am wondering if there is anybody willing to take over. I haven’t had any enquiries about JNIPort since 2020, so the task would be easy: - Take over ownership of the documentation site. - Possibly move the source code for the Pharo version to Gitlab (it is still in the ancient SmalltalkHub repository). - Optionally integrate any changes from JNIPort users, e.g. when they adapt it to more recent versions of VisualWorks or Pharo. There hasn't been any community input since 2017 (or was it 2019?). If nobody takes over, then JNIPort will be one of the many abandoned open source projects and disappear sooner or later when SmalltalkHub, the Cincom Public Repository and the documentation site are switched off. On the other hand, I do not know if there is actually anybody using JNIPort. If it has no users, there is no harm in its disappearance, and maintaining it would be a waste of time. Cheers Joachim Geidel

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UKSTUG Meeting: Esteban Lorenzano - Pharo 13 - 24 September 2025
by UK Smalltalk Sept. 23, 2025

Sept. 23, 2025

Earlier this year, the Pharo development team announced the availability of Pharo 13 ( https://pharo.org/news/2025-05-21-pharo13-released.html ). For our September 2025 meeting, Pharo's release manager Esteban Lorenzano will give us a tour of the new version - what's changed, and what remains the same. Esteban Lorenzano ( https://github.com/estebanlm ) studied Computer Sciences at Universidad de Buenos Aires, and worked since 1994 in several object-oriented and low-level technologies, in different software companies, serving in various positions from programmer to senior architect. In 2007 he co-founded Smallworks to offer Pharo-based agile development projects. Since 2012 he dedicated full time to developing the Pharo code and community. He works with the INRIA-EVREF team in Lille, France, as core developer for Pharo, being responsible with the coordination of new releases and the implementation and maintenance of several Pharo libraries. This will be an online meeting. If you'd like to join us, please sign up in advance on the meeting's Meetup page ( https://www.meetup.com/ukstug/events/310635970/) to receive the meeting details.

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Mailinglist esug: Server move is done
by Marcus Denker Sept. 16, 2025

Sept. 16, 2025

Hello, We have moved the ESUG mailinglist to the new server. - all subscribers have been moved over - but not any special config options that you might have configured. If you want to configure your subscription (or unsubcribe), you have to create an account. (this makes sense to do right away, even if you do not need it now) Please sign up at http://lists.esug.org/accounts/signup using the email adress with which you are subscribed to the list. If you have any problems / suggestions, do not hesitate to send a mail to me. Marcus

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Smalltalk journey - next opportunities ?
by Cyrille Delaunay Sept. 16, 2025

Sept. 16, 2025

Hello dear community ! I started my Smalltalk journey 16 years ago and since then I have been delighted to keep it going all along my career path. I have been excited to make it real and to meet great people on the road. I will be seeking new challenges. If you think this background can be of interest for your project or your team, feel free to reach out :) Cyrille Delaunay linkedin.com/in/cyrille-delaunay-307a4a57

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UKSTUG Meeting - Gilad Bracha: Online Collaboration for Free - 27 August 2025
by UK Smalltalk Aug. 20, 2025

Aug. 20, 2025

For our August presentation, Newspeak's creator Gilad Bracha ( http://bracha.org/ ) will share some recent developments in Newspeak. All Newspeak ( https://newspeaklanguage.org/ ) applications now support interactive online collaboration out of the box. No programming is required to enable this. We utilize the Croquet system to support this, but use it in a unique way, so that no special programming is required. Instead, we leverage Newspeak's class hierarchy inheritance and platform objects so that all Croquet adaptation is done automatically. This is an interim step toward Newspeak's long-standing goal of orthogonal synchronization. We'll explain what all this means, show how it's done, and speculate on next steps. This will be an online meeting. If you'd like to join us, please sign up in advance on the meeting's Meetup page ( https://www.meetup.com/ukstug/events/309017143/ ) to receive the meeting details.

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[ANN] ESUG and IWST 2025 Slides online
by Marcus Denker July 24, 2025

July 24, 2025

The Slides from ESUG and IWST 2025 are online: PDFs are in the archive: https://archive.esug.org/ESUG2025/ We are uploading again to SlideShare (Esug Slides are there, IWST in progress): https://www.slideshare.net/esug/presentations Marcus

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Wanted: Companies using Smalltalk
by Marcus Denker July 15, 2025

July 15, 2025

You might know that the ESUG website has a page where companies are listed that use Smalltalk in some way: https://esug.org/companies.html A problem of course was that the list got out of date quite quickly. We now have improved it: - there is a form to add a new company - the contact person will get a link to update the infos at any time - the system sends a mail every year to the contact to remind to check if the data is still current - website is rendered directly from the data The current page still has a simple rendering: all companies alphabetically. But with the data we will be able to improve this step by step. Future: - nicer page, e.g. with company logos - check links regularly (and send mail in case it is broken) - interactive map For now, the page contains both the new and the old list, with the idea of removing the old entries eventually. Marcus

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ESUG Tech Awards first submissions now public
by Noury Bouraqadi June 24, 2025

June 24, 2025

Hello Smalltalk lovers ! So far, we have 9 submissions for this year's edition of the ESUG Technology Innovation Awards. They are now displayed on the conference page, in arrival order. You only have 7 days to participate. So, hurry up! https://esug.org/2025-Conference/awardsCall2025.html Best, Noury

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20th Smalltalk Technology Innovation Awards!
by Noury Bouraqadi June 5, 2025

June 5, 2025

Hi Fellow Smalltalkers ! As part of the ESUG yearly conference, we're organizing the Smalltalk Technology Innovation Awards. This will be the 20th edition! The goal is to celebrate Smalltalk-related software. Please consider joining us: 1. Just fill this very short form https://forms.gle/8k8DwauZj8VJb6cu9 2. Give a demo on Tuesday 1st of July during the ESUG conference Find out more https://esug.org/2025-Conference/awardsCall2025.html Looking forward to seeing you in Gdansk, Noury

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