stepharo I was not setting out to insult anybody, and if you feel insulted by my comments then I apologise. I have had a frustrating couple of days, and I was trying to explain the source of my frustration. In some respects my problems are connected with the rate at which Pharo is changing; I was a bit niggled by Esteban Maringolo's comment about having to aim at a moving target, which I realise was meant light-heartedly, and I sounded off.
One sort of frustration is exemplified by your comment that RectangleMorph was removed months ago, yet the version of Magritte3 that I got from the configuration browser last week had a method MADescriptionMorph>>rectangleMorph that called RectangleMorph. That has now been changed to BorderedMorph and it works OK, but it wasted a bit of my time finding out why. This may be the fault of the Magritte developers rather than the Pharo developers, but from the user's viewpoint this distinction is not obvious. I have made progress since I sent my messages earlier today; I can now see how to use Magritte (at an elementary level) to produce editors via Seaside in a web browser or as Pharo windows, which was one of my first objectives. I shall persevere with Pharo, and I shall try to read all the documentation thoroughly before asking questions here. Peter Kenny -----Original Message----- From: Pharo-users [mailto:pharo-users-boun...@lists.pharo.org] On Behalf Of stepharo Sent: 14 May 2014 21:22 To: Any question about pharo is welcome Subject: Re: [Pharo-users] Problem learning about Magritte On 14/5/14 17:15, PBK Research wrote: > Esteban > > Well, I am carrying on, but I do wonder why Pharo has to be such a rapidly > moving target. There are virtues in stability, and perhaps there should be a > filtering process before any change is made, to ensure that the benefits > outweigh any disruption. There is one. Now immobility is also death. > I must admit that, at times, Pharo looks like a > playground for a fairly small group of very clever people who are in love > with the process of development. Pharo is not moving fast. The RectangleMorph has been removed months ago. Now if people do not maintain packages or maintain only what they use: this is not the fault of Pharo. Pharo is not a playground. We have companies deploying real software using Pharo. Now for some companies this is important to have - up to date technologies like vector graphics - clean (you know not always getting dirt in your way when you code) - easy to use version of Pharo and they value that we are moving. We do not move for the sake of it and we would prefer to have a clean and well designed system like dolphin was (which could never run on my machine) but people preferred "better dead than open-source" and they are dead sadly. > > I got involved with Pharo again recently - having looked at it briefly > several years ago - because I had read papers, mainly by Lukas Renggli, > about Magritte and PetitParser, and I thought these were brilliant ideas > that I wanted to explore. But am sure that, if I could get the functions of > Magritte and PetitParser in a stable environment like Dolphin, I would drop > Pharo like a shot. Peter don't you feel that you are insulting us? if it makes you feel better good for you. You can use a Smalltalk running only on windows, that is dead (and of course it was really nice) but the people were against open-source and we believe that we prefer to have an open-source system that everybody can have a look than a close source working on a single OS developed by 1.5 developer. Because there were only two smart guys behind objectarts. Next time you insult Pharo and us I will just plonk your email (if you do not know what plonk means ask google). > > While I am in a moaning mood - I'm not always like this! - could anyone tell > me whether there is a glossary of names for Pharo extensions which will tell > beginners like me what they are for and whether they are worth learning > about. I have come across Cairo, Athens, Zinc, Fuel, Spec, Grease and Shout > - just as names, with no idea what they do and no obvious way of finding > out. I have the answers but frankly you did not give me the will to tell that to you especially when I spent my FREE time and energy to write software and documentation for other people. Now you should learn how to ask questions in an open-source community. Now by insulting people: Cairo (ask google because this is mainstream), Athens (is a API for vector graphics with different back -end like cairo -hints hints), Zinc (HTTP server), Fuel (serializer), Spec (UIbuilder), Grease (Compatibility package) and Shout (Syntax Higlighter as you type). > Is there any place where I can look these things up? They all exist in > the Forum image that I downloaded today, but the system browser contains no > general explanation. If you load the code using a configuration then placing the mouse on the configuration package will if the project got documented show you the description. Now you can find information on - the draft pharo catalog https://ci.inria.fr/pharo-contribution/job/PharoProjectCatalog/ - the draft of the new book https://ci.inria.fr/pharo-contribution/job/PharoForTheEnterprise/ - http://www.deepintopharo.org Stef > > Peter Kenny > > PS I've just seen Stephan's reply while composing this. Thanks - it all gets > a bit clearer. You might take my last paragraph above as my response to your > last paragraph! > > > -----Original Message----- > From: Pharo-users [mailto:pharo-users-boun...@lists.pharo.org] On Behalf Of > Esteban A. Maringolo > Sent: 14 May 2014 13:30 > To: Any question about pharo is welcome > Subject: Re: [Pharo-users] Problem learning about Magritte > > 2014-05-14 9:25 GMT-03:00 PBK Research <pe...@pbkresearch.co.uk>: >> Stephan >> Still, I am making progress with my original aim of learning about > Magritte, >> and there are many helpful people on this group, so you can just regard > this >> as me blowing off steam after things had not gone completely easily. > Plus, you mention you're coming from Dolphin Smalltalk. > Which is easier than the average, in terms of straightforwardness. > > Pharo has A LOT to offer, once you get used to aim at a moving target :) > > > Esteban A. Maringolo > > >
