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CfP: SLE 2026 - 19th ACM SIGPLAN International Conference on Software Language Engineering
by Andrei Chis Nov. 20, 2025

Nov. 20, 2025

19th ACM SIGPLAN International Conference on Software Language Engineering (SLE 2026) 2 - 3 July 2026 Rennes, France https://conf.researchr.org/home/sle-2026 https://www.sleconf.org/2026/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ We are pleased to invite you to submit papers to the 19th ACM SIGPLAN International Conference on Software Language Engineering (SLE) which is devoted to the principles of software languages: their design, their implementation, and their evolution. The SLE 2026 conference will be co-located with STAF 2026 and hosted in Rennes, France, on 2 - 3 July 2026. --------------------------- Important Dates --------------------------- * Abstract submission (all tracks): Friday 27 February 2026 * Paper submission (all tracks): Friday 6 March 2026 * Paper notification (all tracks): Monday 20 April 2026 * Conference: Thursday 2 - Friday 3 July 2026 (co-located with STAF) All dates are Anywhere on Earth. --------------------------- Topics of Interest --------------------------- SLE covers software language engineering in general, rather than engineering a specific software language. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to: *Software Language Design and Implementation - Approaches to and methods for language design - Static semantics (e.g., design rules, well-formedness constraints) - Techniques for specifying behavioral/executable semantics - Generative approaches (incl. code synthesis, compilation) - Meta-languages, meta-tools, language workbenches - AI-assisted language design and optimisation * Software Language Quality - Verification and formal methods for languages - Testing techniques for languages - Simulation techniques for languages - Model-based testing - AI-assisted validation * Software Language Integration and Composition - Coordination of heterogeneous languages and tools - Mappings between languages (incl. transformation languages) - Traceability between languages - Deployment of languages to different platforms - (AI-assisted) Language refactorings * Software Language Maintenance - Software language reuse - Language evolution - Language families and variability, language and software product lines * Domain-specific approaches for any aspects of SLE (design, implementation, validation, maintenance) * Empirical evaluation and experience reports of language engineering tools - User studies evaluating usability - Performance benchmarks - Industrial applications * Synergies between Language Engineering and emerging/promising research areas - Generative AI in language engineering (e.g., AI-based language modelling, AI-driven code generation tools) - Language engineering for AI. AI and ML language engineering (e.g., ML compiler testing, code classification, DSLs for AI processes and tasks…) - Quantum language engineering (e.g., language design for quantum machines) - Language engineering for physical systems (e.g., CPS, IoT, digital twins) - Socio-technical systems and language engineering (e.g., language evolution to adapt to social requirements) --------------------------- Types of Submissions --------------------------- SLE accepts the following types of papers: * Research papers: These are “traditional” papers detailing research contributions to SLE. Papers may range from 6 to 12 pages in length and may optionally include 2 further pages of bibliography/appendices. Papers will be reviewed with an understanding that some results do not need 12 full pages and may be fully described in fewer pages. * New ideas/vision papers: These papers may describe new, unconventional software language engineering research positions or approaches that depart from standard practice. They can describe well-defined research ideas that are at an early stage of investigation. They could also provide new evidence to challenge common wisdom, present new unifying theories about existing SLE research that provides novel insight or that can lead to the development of new technologies or approaches, or apply SLE technology to radically new application areas. New ideas/vision papers must not exceed 5 pages and may optionally include 1 further page of bibliography/appendices. * SLE Body of Knowledge: The SLE Body of Knowledge (SLEBoK) is a community-wide effort to provide a unique and comprehensive description of the concepts, best practices, tools, and methods developed by the SLE community. In this respect, the SLE conference will accept surveys, essays, open challenges, empirical observations, and case study papers on the SLE topics. These can focus on, but are not limited to, methods, techniques, best practices, and teaching approaches. Papers in this category can have up to 20 pages, including bibliography/appendices. * Tool papers: These papers focus on the tooling aspects often forgotten or neglected in research papers. A good tool paper focuses on practical insights that will likely be useful to other implementers or users in the future. Any of the SLE topics of interest are appropriate areas for tool papers. Submissions must not exceed 5 pages and may optionally include 1 further page of bibliography/appendices. They may optionally include an appendix with a demo outline/screenshots and/or a short video/screencast illustrating the tool. **Workshops**: Workshops will be organised by STAF. Please inform us and contact STAF 2026 organisers if you would like to organise a workshop of interest to the SLE audience. Information on how to submit workshops can be found on the STAF 2026 Website. --------------------------- Submission --------------------------- SLE 2026 has a single submission round for papers, including a mandatory abstract registration. Authors of accepted research papers will be invited to submit artefacts. --------------------------- Format --------------------------- Submissions have to use the ACM SIGPLAN Conference Format “acmart” ( https://sigplan.org/Resources/Author/#acmart-format) please make sure that you always use the latest ACM SIGPLAN acmart LaTeX template, and that the document class definition is \documentclass[sigplan,anonymous,review]{acmart}. Do not make any changes to this format! Ensure that your submission is legible when printed on a black and white printer. In particular, please check that colours remain distinct and font sizes in figures and tables are legible. To increase fairness in reviewing, a double-blind review process has become standard across SIGPLAN conferences. Accordingly, SLE will follow the double-blind process. Author names and institutions must be omitted from submitted papers, and references to the authors’ own related work should be in the third person. No other changes are necessary, and authors will not be penalized if reviewers are able to infer their identities in implicit ways. All submissions must be in PDF format. You can access the submission site from the conference website: https://conf.researchr.org/home/sle-2026 --------------------------- Concurrent Submissions --------------------------- Papers must describe unpublished work that is not currently submitted for publication elsewhere as described by SIGPLAN’s Republication Policy ( https://www.sigplan.org/Resources/Policies/Republication/) Submitters should also be aware of ACM’s Policy and Procedures on Plagiarism ( https://www.acm.org/publications/policies/plagiarism-overview) Submissions that violate these policies will be desk-rejected. --------------------------- Policy on Human Participant and Subject Research --------------------------- Authors conducting research involving human participants and subjects must ensure that their research complies with their local governing laws and regulations and the ACM’s general principles, as stated in the ACM’s Publications Policy on Research Involving Human Participants and Subjects ( https://www.acm.org/publications/policies/research-involving-human-particip…) If submissions are found to be violating this policy, they will be rejected. --------------------------- Reviewing Process --------------------------- All submitted papers will be reviewed by at least three members of the program committee. Research papers and tool papers will be evaluated concerning soundness, relevance, novelty, presentation, validation, and replicability. New ideas/vision papers will be evaluated primarily concerning soundness, relevance, novelty, and presentation. Tool papers will be evaluated concerning relevance, presentation, and replicability. For fairness reasons, all submitted papers must conform to the above instructions. Submissions that violate these instructions may be rejected without review at the discretion of the PC chairs. --------------------------- Artefact Evaluation --------------------------- SLE will use an evaluation process to assess the quality of artefacts on which papers are based to foster the culture of experimental reproducibility. Authors of accepted research papers are invited to submit artefacts. --------------------------- Awards --------------------------- * Distinguished paper: Award for the most notable paper, as determined by the PC chairs based on the recommendations of the program committee. * Distinguished artefact: Award for the artefact most significantly exceeding expectations, as determined by the AEC chairs based on the recommendations of the artefact evaluation committee. * Distinguished reviewer: Award for the programme committee member that produced the most useful reviews as assessed by paper authors. * Most Influential Paper: Award for the SLE 2016 paper with the greatest impact, as judged by the SLE Steering Committee. --------------------------- Publication --------------------------- All accepted papers will be published in the ACM Digital Library. **AUTHORS TAKE NOTE**: The official publication date is the date the proceedings are made available in the ACM Digital Library. This date may be up to two weeks prior to the first day of the conference. The official publication date affects the deadline for any patent filings related to published work. --------------------------- Organisation --------------------------- * General chair: Arnaud Blouin, Univ Rennes, INSA Rennes, Inria, CNRS, IRISA * PC co-chair: Jordi Cabot, Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology * PC co-chair: Shigeru Chiba, University of Tokyo, Japan --------------------------- Contact --------------------------- For additional information, clarification, or answers to any questions, please get in touch with the program co-chairs (jordi.cabot(a)list.lu and chiba(a)g.ecc.u-tokyo.ac.jp)

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UKSTUG Meeting: Norbert Hartl - Soil: a database for fun and profit - 26 November 2025
by UK Smalltalk Nov. 19, 2025

Nov. 19, 2025

Soil ( https://github.com/ApptiveGrid/Soil ) is an object oriented database implemented completely in smalltalk/pharo. It makes it easy to build a persistent solution without the burden of mapping everything to some external DSL/database. It supports storing arbitrary graphs and enables transparent access to them. It has binary search indexes to make lookups of huge collections quite efficient. It is the main database behind ApptiveGrid - low code tool to build business processes. ( https://www.apptivegrid.de/) Norbert Hartl ( https://github.com/noha ) is an experienced software engineer and entrepreneur with a strong track record of delivering business projects and developing key libraries and frameworks. As the co-founder of ApptiveGrid and PharoPro, he focuses on creating efficient, zero-dependency software solutions that drive business innovation and streamline operations. 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/311265917/ ) to receive the meeting details.

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DevEx survey
by stephane ducasse Nov. 14, 2025

Nov. 14, 2025

Hello people Sorry this is survey in french for developers, but it can interest french speaking developers. Bonjour, Pas plus de 5 min de votre temps! Je me permets de vous contacter afin de vous proposer de mener, au sein de vos équipes, une réplication de l’étude DevEx in Action, conduite en 2024 par N. Forsgren (Microsoft Research), E. Kalliamvakou (Github Next), A. Noda (DX), M. Greiler (DX), E. Houck (Microsoft) et M.-A. Storey (Université de Victoria). Article original disponible à https://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=3639443 Cette réplication s’inscrit dans le cadre de ma thèse portant sur l’impact réciproque de la dette technique sur la santé mentale des développeurs. L’objectif de cette étude est d’évaluer l’expérience développeur (DevEx), qui définit la qualité de l’expérience vécue par les développeurs et développeuses dans leur environnement technique et organisationnel. L’étude s’appuie sur trois dimensions principales : les boucles de retour (feedback), la charge cognitive et la capacité à maintenir sa concentration. La réplication consiste à mesurer ces dimensions et leur impact sur les résultats perçus au niveau individuel, de l’équipe et de l’entreprise. Le dispositif repose sur un questionnaire unique et identique à celui de l’étude originale. Il est anonyme, volontaire et prend environ 5 minutes à remplir. Les réponses sont analysées par modélisation PLS-SEM (via SmartPLS 4), comme précisé dans l’étude originale. Lien du questionnaire : https://annac.limesurvey.net/422315?lang=fr Cordialement, Anna Cathelineau anna.cathelineau(a)gmail.com <mailto:anna.cathelineau@gmail.com>

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MPLR 2026 Call for Papers
by stephane ducasse Nov. 13, 2025

Nov. 13, 2025

Dear Smalltalk friends Please find the following conference call for papers that can interest you. If you know other forums that could be interested in virtual machines, compilers …. do not hesitate to forward this call. S. Ducasse and C. Scholliers PC chair of MPLR 26 ################################################################################## The 23rd International Conference on Managed Programming Languages & Runtimes (MPLR, formerly ManLang, originally PPPJ) is a premier forum for presenting and discussing novel results in all aspects of managed programming languages and runtime systems, which serve as building blocks for some of the most important computing systems in use, ranging from small-scale (embedded and real-time systems) to large-scale (cloud-computing and big-data platforms) and anything in between (desktop, mobile, IoT, and wearable applications). https://2026.ecoop.org/home/mplr-2026 Important Dates --------------- - Abstract Submission Deadline: February 27, 2026 - Paper Submission Deadline: March 6, 2026 - Paper Author Notification: April 15, 2026 - Camera Ready for Papers: April 30, 2026 - Conference Date: June 29, 2026 All deadlines are 23:59 AoE (UTC-12h). #### Topics The areas of interest related to managed programming languages and runtime systems include but are not limited to: - **Virtual Machines** - Portable intermediate representations (e.g., JVM, WebAssembly, RPython, ...) - Managed runtime systems (e.g., GraalVM, Android Runtime (ART), V8, JavaScriptCore, .NET, …) - VM design and optimization - VMs for mobile and embedded devices - VMs for real-time applications - Memory management and garbage collection - Hardware/software co-design - Domain-specific languages - Security and privacy - Persistence - **Languages and Compilers** - Managed languages - Compilers and interpreters - Type systems and program logics - Language interoperability - Parallelism, distribution, and concurrency - **Techniques, Tools, and Applications** - Static and dynamic program analysis - Testing and debugging - Simulation - Refactorings - Program synthesis - Performance analysis and monitoring - Compiler and program verification and model checking If you are unsure whether a particular topic falls within the scope of MPLR ’26 or if you have any other questions, please do not hesitate to contact the Program Chair. #### Submission Categories MPLR accepts three types of submissions: - **Regular research papers**, describing novel contributions involving managed language platforms. Research papers will be evaluated based on their relevance, novelty, technical rigor, and contribution to the state-of-the-art. (Format: up to 12 pages, excluding bibliography and appendix); - **Work-in-progress research papers**, describing hot topics or promising new ideas, with perhaps less maturity than full papers. Work-in-progress papers will be evaluated with an emphasis on novelty and the potential of the new ideas instead of technical rigor and experimental results. (Format: up to 6 pages, excluding bibliography and appendix); - **Industry and tool papers**, presenting technical challenges and solutions for managed language platforms in the context of deployed applications and systems. Industry and tool papers will be evaluated on their relevance, usefulness, and results. Suitability for demonstration and availability will also be considered for tool papers. (Format: up to 6 pages, excluding bibliography and appendix; up to 12 pages allowed if justified by the content); Accepted submissions will be published in the ACM Digital Library, except if the authors prefer not to be included. MPLR 2026 submissions must conform to the ACM Policy on Prior Publication and Simultaneous Submissions and to the SIGPLAN Republication Policy. See http://www.sigplan.org/Resources/Policies/Republication #### Author Instructions Submissions need to use the ACM SIGPLAN format with the `sigplan` style. If you are using LaTeX, submissions need to use the `acmart` document class with the `sigplan` option (*not* the `sigconf` option). In the `acmart-primary.zip` file that downloads from the LaTeX (Version 1.90) link on the https://www.acm.org/publications/proceedings-template page, look for `samples/sample-sigplan.tex` as a guide. If you use Overleaf, be sure to change the `documentclass` option `manuscript` to `sigplan`. For ease of reviewing, please include page numbers in your submission using the LaTeX command `\settopmatter{printfolios=true}`. Please use the standard setting, e.g., the default font size for the SIGPLAN style is 10 point and the format uses two columns for the test. All submissions need to be in PDF format. MPLR now uses **double-blind reviewing**. **Authors should not show their names on a submission and should refer to their own work in third person.** We further recommend that they avoid publicizing the work, at least under the same or similar title, while it is under review. Please also ensure that your submission is legible when printed on a black and white printer. In particular, please check that colors remain distinct and font sizes are legible. Submission Site: https://mplr26.hotcrp.com

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A thought for Vanessa Freudenberg
by stephane ducasse Oct. 30, 2025

Oct. 30, 2025

Hello Pharoers Today I just learned that Vanessa Freudenberg passed away. And I’m super sad. I knew her from Squeak Central, Impara and the funny Plop Project. Vanessa pushed SqueakJS and more projects. At ESUG this year we had fun with the new version of Plop. I do not have contact with her family and friend but I want to express my sincere condolences. Please pass them this message if you get in touch with them. S.

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Re: [vwnc] JNIPort - is there anyone willing to maintain it?
by Jordan, Jeremy Oct. 28, 2025

Oct. 28, 2025

Yes, Colin! You are correct and we are very excited to announce PUL 9! In case any of you aren't on the Cincom Smalltalk Digest newsletter subscription, here's the announcement we put out on Tuesday of last week: PUL 9: A Giant Leap Forward: Now Compatible with macOS! Cincom is excited to announce PUL 9, a groundbreaking upgrade that brings full macOS compatibility to our personal use non-commercial license version that empowers developers to build and maintain applications seamlessly across platforms. Beyond this game-changing Mac support, PUL 9 delivers powerful enhancements designed to boost efficiency, scalability, and performance: * Enhanced Development Efficiency: Advanced debugging, smarter source management, and streamlined project organization for faster, error-free coding. * True Cross-Platform Compatibility: Run applications reliably on Windows, Mac, Linux, and Unix. * Support for Modern Workloads: 64-bit VMs, larger object spaces, and updated frameworks handle complex apps without performance trade-offs. PUL 9 delivers a modern Smalltalk environment with all the latest and greatest features of Cincom Smalltalk. Ready to Try Cincom Smalltalk? Start Here. The best way to begin your journey with Cincom Smalltalk is with our Personal Use Non-Commercial License. The PUL 9 is designed specifically for individuals new to our platform. It provides a development environment for you to enjoy Cincom's latest technology. Please note that our latest commercial version, Cincom Smalltalk 9.5, is currently available to existing customers and partners. If you or your company would like access to this new release, we would love to hear from you. Simply reach out to the Cincom Smalltalk Team<mailto:CSSTARTeam@cincom.com?subject=>, and we’ll connect you with the right person to guide you through your options. 👉 Download our personal use non-commercial version<https://www.cincom.com/smalltalk/download-pul> today and start building with confidence. Also, in the very near future, we will be moving conversations like this one in the VWNC mailing list to cincomsmalltalk.com. There, we will have a forum where these, and other discussions, can be made in a community setting. [cid:7a225c73-65e4-4232-ad37-2317c3af188f] Jeremy Jordan Senior Marketing Manager Office: +1 513-612-2147 Mobile: +1 513-519-6711 cincom.com<https://cincom.com/> cincomsmalltalk.com<https://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/> ________________________________ From: vwnc-request(a)lists.siebelschool.illinois.edu <vwnc-request(a)lists.siebelschool.illinois.edu> on behalf of Colin Sare-Soar <colin.saresoar(a)terrashape.co.uk> Sent: Friday, October 3, 2025 9:10 AM To: Thomas Sattler <tomsattler(a)gmail.com>; Joachim Geidel <joachim.geidel(a)posteo.de> Cc: vwnc(a)lists.siebelschool.illinois.edu <vwnc(a)lists.siebelschool.illinois.edu>; pharo-users(a)lists.pharo.org <pharo-users(a)lists.pharo.org>; esug-list(a)lists.esug.org <esug-list(a)lists.esug.org> Subject: Re: [vwnc] JNIPort - is there anyone willing to maintain it? CAUTION: This email originated from outside of Cincom's email system. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe. Thanks - If in doubt, contact the Service Desk at it.servicedesk(a)partnerone.com or your local IT personnel. Some people who received this message don't often get email from colin.saresoar(a)terrashape.co.uk. Learn why this is important<https://protect.checkpoint.com/v2/r01/___https://aka.ms/LearnAboutSenderIde…> That's all changed today! Cincom have released PUL v9 I've applied for a copy, just waiting for the email now :-) Colin On 25/09/2025 00:31 +07 Thomas Sattler <tomsattler(a)gmail.com> wrote: 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…<https://protect.checkpoint.com/v2/r01/___https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:…> . 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…<https://protect.checkpoint.com/v2/r01/___https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:…> ). 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: Hernán Wilkinson & Juan Vuletich - Keeping up with Cuis Smalltalk - 29 October 2025
by UK Smalltalk Oct. 27, 2025

Oct. 27, 2025

For our October meeting, Hernán Wilkinson and Juan Vuletich will tell us about recent developments in Cuis Smalltalk ( https://cuis.st/ ). These range from kernel functionality like Ephemerons and the Sista Bytecodes set to app developer tools like a visual GUI Designer and additional Layout policies. Hernán Wilkinson ( https://github.com/hernanwilkinson ) Passionate programmer. Smalltalk lover. Founder of 10Pines and FAST (Argentine Foundation of Smalltalk). Professor of the FCEyN at the UBA. Teaches OO and Agile techniques at the university and the industry. Key Note Speaker of many national and international conferences. Contributes to many Smalltalk opensource projects. Promotes self organized organizations and agile methodologies. You can follow him in Twitter at @hernanwilkinson Juan Vuletich ( https://www.jvuletich.org/ ) Juan Vuletich is the founder and lead developer of Cuis Smalltalk. He is a long-standing Open Source Smalltalk community member, having contributed kernel code to Cuis, Squeak and the OpenSmalltalk VM for over 25 years. Juan has been programming since he was 14, and doing it professionally since he was 17. He holds an MS.Sc. in Computer Science from the University of Buenos Aires. He works at LabWare. 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/311117386/ ) to receive the meeting details.

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Smalltalk Meetup in Zurich, 31 October 2025
by Peter Ursprung Sept. 29, 2025

Sept. 29, 2025

Hi all, We are organizing the next Smalltalk Meetup in Zurich, Switzerland. It will be on Friday, 31 October 2025, starting at 18:00. We will meet in a meeting room where we will have short Smalltalk talks, then we will go to a nearby restaurant. If you are interested, please register on this website by Friday, 24 October 2025: https://zurich.smalltalk.world <https://zurich.smalltalk.world> Would you like to show something interesting? Please indicate the topic of your desired presentation when registering. Regards, Peter

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Smalltalker available
by M. Roberts Sept. 29, 2025

Sept. 29, 2025

Hi everyone, I hope you're well. Long time Smalltalker here, currently seeking new opportunities in the field. If you happen to know of any openings for someone with my experience, I'd love to connect. Feel free to pass my info along or drop me a message—I'd really appreciate it! Thanks so much, Mark Roberts https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-roberts-93139b384/

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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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