Re: [Pharo-users] Mea Culpa

[Martin Bähr]

Excerpts from kilon alios's message of 2015-01-22 08:13:57 +0100:
> Popularity indeed comes with a high price. Guido the creator of python he
> has said in one of his presentation that there many people who want to add
> their libraries to python distribution but they should not want to do that,
> because once a library is added it become very difficult to change since so
> many people depend on it to keep backward compatibility. He claimed that
> even simple bug fixes have to go through lengthy review process. This can
> be expanded to the entirety of the IDE and the language.
> 
> This the most important reason why pharo has been moving forward so fast
> and why popular languages move at glacial speed.
> I dont want to lose that so yes I dont want for pharo to become popular.

squeak already hast that 'problem' i believe and pharo is actively working to
counteract it by removing less important things. so i doubt pharo will suffer
from the pressure to fill it up with new packages any time soon.

in this case it may be a win for all because those who want backwards
compatibility can choose squeak, and those who want fast paced action may use
pharo.

also craig with context is working on minimizing the images which i believe
should help to move more and more things out of the core, allowing you to pull
them back in, making it possible to choose from various versions, based on your
compatibility needs.

ironically, i actually expect to want backwards compatibility in the future.
but backwards to now, not to a decade ago, so i hope pharo development will
eventually slow down somewhat.

in addition, the multiple smalltalk implementations also act as a stabilizing
factor, because people will want to write code that runs on all of them.
(seaside for example) so pharo can't go that far out of line and make itself
completely incompatible.

i am also not sure which is better. a large standard library makes for a more 
stable system.
having lots of important 3rd party libraries can lead to dependency issues...

greetings, martin.

-- 
eKita   -   the online platform for your entire academic life
-- 
chief engineer   eKita.co
pike programmer  pike.lysator.liu.secaudium.net societyserver.org
secretary  beijinglug.org
mentor   fossasia.org
foresight developer  foresightlinux.orgrealss.com
unix sysadmin
Martin Bähr  working in chinahttp://societyserver.org/mbaehr/

Re: [Pharo-users] Glorp on Pharo 4

[Sven Van Caekenberghe]

A comma is indeed a (binary) message. It concatenates two Collections, like 
Strings.

Please provide more details on how you try to connect and what error you get, 
exactly.

> On 22 Jan 2015, at 08:26, Craig  wrote:
> 
> From: Sven Van Caekenberghe
> Sent: 22 January 2015 08:37 AM
> 
>> What exactly do you mean ?
>> 
>> Reading the link above that seems to be correct, at first glance, maybe I
> don't see it.
> 
> Sven,
> 
> Forgive me, I'm new to Pharo, but I'm sure that in Pharo you don't use
> commas to separate parameters in a 
> message.  I don't know of any syntactical significance of the comma.
> I saw this after I got the ", does not understand connectionArgs" message
> when trying to connect to my 
> Postgres database.  I take this to mean that Pharo tried to send the
> connectionArgs message to the 
> ',' ByteString.
> 
> Craig
> 
> 

Re: [Pharo-users] could not find display

[Lozenguez Guillaume]

Hi,

   Finally it's working normally this morning.
I suppose that a simple reboot has actualized the environment variables.

So, I'm ready to start the tutorial now...

Guillaume L.


Afin de contribuer au respect de l'environnement,
merci de n'imprimer ce courriel qu'en cas de necessite

Please consider the environment before you print

Re: [Pharo-users] Mea Culpa

[Bernat Romagosa]

Hey Richard,

I believe the only alive cross-dialect space is the #smalltalk IRC channel
in FreeNode. There's an average of 25~30 people online in that channel,
which is not _too_ bad considering the size of our community. Still,
compare that to, say, #lisp, with ~400 users and also being a cross-dialect
channel.

Smalltalkers feel quite strong about their particular dialect. I'm not
criticizing this behavior, I'm just stating facts. I also have strong
feelings for "my dialects" and I don't think this is necessarily bad.

However, there are some "de-facto" meeting points for all Smalltalks, like
http://world.st. Even though there is no mailing list that joins all of us
together, this space does feature a homogenized list of all forums (
http://forum.world.st/). Planet Smalltalk (http://planet.smalltalk.org/) is
another great one for those of us who use RSS feeds.

Indeed, it could take quite a while before a generic Smalltalk list was
populated enough, but these two efforts show there might be an interest.

Cheers,
Bernat.

2015-01-22 9:11 GMT+01:00 Martin Bähr :

> Excerpts from kilon alios's message of 2015-01-22 08:13:57 +0100:
> > Popularity indeed comes with a high price. Guido the creator of python he
> > has said in one of his presentation that there many people who want to
> add
> > their libraries to python distribution but they should not want to do
> that,
> > because once a library is added it become very difficult to change since
> so
> > many people depend on it to keep backward compatibility. He claimed that
> > even simple bug fixes have to go through lengthy review process. This can
> > be expanded to the entirety of the IDE and the language.
> >
> > This the most important reason why pharo has been moving forward so fast
> > and why popular languages move at glacial speed.
> > I dont want to lose that so yes I dont want for pharo to become popular.
>
> squeak already hast that 'problem' i believe and pharo is actively working
> to
> counteract it by removing less important things. so i doubt pharo will
> suffer
> from the pressure to fill it up with new packages any time soon.
>
> in this case it may be a win for all because those who want backwards
> compatibility can choose squeak, and those who want fast paced action may
> use
> pharo.
>
> also craig with context is working on minimizing the images which i believe
> should help to move more and more things out of the core, allowing you to
> pull
> them back in, making it possible to choose from various versions, based on
> your
> compatibility needs.
>
> ironically, i actually expect to want backwards compatibility in the
> future.
> but backwards to now, not to a decade ago, so i hope pharo development will
> eventually slow down somewhat.
>
> in addition, the multiple smalltalk implementations also act as a
> stabilizing
> factor, because people will want to write code that runs on all of them.
> (seaside for example) so pharo can't go that far out of line and make
> itself
> completely incompatible.
>
> i am also not sure which is better. a large standard library makes for a
> more stable system.
> having lots of important 3rd party libraries can lead to dependency
> issues...
>
> greetings, martin.
>
> --
> eKita   -   the online platform for your entire academic
> life
> --
> chief engineer
>  eKita.co
> pike programmer  pike.lysator.liu.secaudium.net
> societyserver.org
> secretary
> beijinglug.org
> mentor
> fossasia.org
> foresight developer  foresightlinux.org
> realss.com
> unix sysadmin
> Martin Bähr  working in china
> http://societyserver.org/mbaehr/
>
>


-- 
Bernat Romagosa.

Re: [Pharo-users] Mea Culpa

[Joachim Tuchel]

I don't think there is a need for new lists.
We've had comp.lang.smalltalk.advocacy and comp.lang.smalltalk. Currently we 
leave them to the spammers, and trolls, which is a bad sign for outsiders.

Always moving somewhere new and leave old trash around doesn't improve 
anything, does it?

Joachim

Am 22.01.2015 13:41 schrieb Bernat Romagosa :
>
> Hey Richard,
>
> I believe the only alive cross-dialect space is the #smalltalk IRC channel in 
> FreeNode. There's an average of 25~30 people online in that channel, which is 
> not _too_ bad considering the size of our community. Still, compare that to, 
> say, #lisp, with ~400 users and also being a cross-dialect channel.
>
> Smalltalkers feel quite strong about their particular dialect. I'm not 
> criticizing this behavior, I'm just stating facts. I also have strong 
> feelings for "my dialects" and I don't think this is necessarily bad.
>
> However, there are some "de-facto" meeting points for all Smalltalks, like 
> http://world.st. Even though there is no mailing list that joins all of us 
> together, this space does feature a homogenized list of all forums 
> (http://forum.world.st/). Planet Smalltalk (http://planet.smalltalk.org/) is 
> another great one for those of us who use RSS feeds.
>
> Indeed, it could take quite a while before a generic Smalltalk list was 
> populated enough, but these two efforts show there might be an interest.
>
> Cheers,
> Bernat.
>
> 2015-01-22 9:11 GMT+01:00 Martin Bähr :
>>
>> Excerpts from kilon alios's message of 2015-01-22 08:13:57 +0100:
>> > Popularity indeed comes with a high price. Guido the creator of python he
>> > has said in one of his presentation that there many people who want to add
>> > their libraries to python distribution but they should not want to do that,
>> > because once a library is added it become very difficult to change since so
>> > many people depend on it to keep backward compatibility. He claimed that
>> > even simple bug fixes have to go through lengthy review process. This can
>> > be expanded to the entirety of the IDE and the language.
>> >
>> > This the most important reason why pharo has been moving forward so fast
>> > and why popular languages move at glacial speed.
>> > I dont want to lose that so yes I dont want for pharo to become popular.
>>
>> squeak already hast that 'problem' i believe and pharo is actively working to
>> counteract it by removing less important things. so i doubt pharo will suffer
>> from the pressure to fill it up with new packages any time soon.
>>
>> in this case it may be a win for all because those who want backwards
>> compatibility can choose squeak, and those who want fast paced action may use
>> pharo.
>>
>> also craig with context is working on minimizing the images which i believe
>> should help to move more and more things out of the core, allowing you to 
>> pull
>> them back in, making it possible to choose from various versions, based on 
>> your
>> compatibility needs.
>>
>> ironically, i actually expect to want backwards compatibility in the future.
>> but backwards to now, not to a decade ago, so i hope pharo development will
>> eventually slow down somewhat.
>>
>> in addition, the multiple smalltalk implementations also act as a stabilizing
>> factor, because people will want to write code that runs on all of them.
>> (seaside for example) so pharo can't go that far out of line and make itself
>> completely incompatible.
>>
>> i am also not sure which is better. a large standard library makes for a 
>> more stable system.
>> having lots of important 3rd party libraries can lead to dependency issues...
>>
>> greetings, martin.
>>
>> --
>> eKita                   -   the online platform for your entire academic life
>> --
>> chief engineer                                                       eKita.co
>> pike programmer      pike.lysator.liu.se    caudium.net     societyserver.org
>> secretary                                                      beijinglug.org
>> mentor                                                           fossasia.org
>> foresight developer  foresightlinux.org                            realss.com
>> unix sysadmin
>> Martin Bähr          working in china        http://societyserver.org/mbaehr/
>>
>
>
>
> -- 
> Bernat Romagosa.

Re: [Pharo-users] Essays

[horrido]

Someone mentioned to me that there are some incredible Pharo-related projects
coming down the pike, that these developments should be made known to the
rest of the world. To which I replied:

> Yes, yes, yes! Absolutely! I want Pharo to get this message out there.
> 
> I can help, but I cannot be the only voice. This is why I entreat you to
> write about these incredible developments and present them as essays at
> our website. I have focussed (or tried to focus) the world's attention on
> our web of social media (eg, WordPress, Twitter, Facebook, Google+,
> LinkedIn). Rather than having your message scattered everywhere, it should
> be in one place 
*
> where everybody is drawn to
*
> . 
*
> That's the power of branding!
*
> 
> As I mentioned in a previous post, the amount of published information on
> Smalltalk (and Pharo) is voluminous. For me to curate all this information
> and summarize it on our website is daunting; I simply don't have enough
> time and energy. I need your help.

So please, take this unique opportunity to spread your message. Talk about
all the great things coming out of Pharo. I will publish your essays and
make you look good!

You know where to send your submissions.

Thanks.

horrido wrote
> We have a couple of essays published at 
> Smalltalk renaissance
>   
> . 
*
> We need more.
*
> 
> This is our opportunity to answer the questions, concerns, and criticisms
> of non-Smalltalk developers, an opportunity afforded by the SRP, which is
> drawing much new attention to Smalltalk. We should exploit this
> opportunity and not waste it.
> 
> Suggested essay topics include:
> 
> - talk about actual use of Smalltalk in the enterprise
> - expand on the much-touted productivity advantage of Smalltalk (many
> people are skeptical)
> - explain how the experience of using the Smalltalk environment is
> superior to that of Eclipse, IntelliJ, Visual Studio, etc.
> - talk about future developments in Smalltalk, eg, concurrency features,
> new IDEs, new tooling, etc.
> - any other topics you may deem noteworthy
> 
> So, please, contribute an essay. 
/
> Without you, there is no campaign.
/
> 
> Send all submissions to my personal email: horrido.hobbies at gmail dot
> com.
> 
> Thanks.





--
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http://forum.world.st/Essays-tp4800394p4801004.html
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Re: [Pharo-users] Mea Culpa

[Sean P. DeNigris]

hernanmd wrote
> I am not that convinced Smalltalk should be popular

For me, the goal is "critical mass" - big enough where issues and new
projects move forward with ease. And this is probably just a few hundred
percent. Mass popularity brings in people disconnected from the vision.
Smalltalk for me is prototype Dynabook software. If it was just "a better
programming environment", I'd still use it, but I doubt there would still be
a passionate dream for the future of humanity attached to it...



-
Cheers,
Sean
--
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Re: [Pharo-users] Mea Culpa

[Ben Coman]

On Thu, Jan 22, 2015 at 4:12 AM, horrido  wrote:

> Okay, so far, I've made two mistakes. First was my lack of sensitivity to
> cultural differences around the world. Now that I know better, I shall do
> better.
>
> Second was my failure to distinguish between different subgroups within the
> Pharo forum. The reason I chose Pharo forum to discuss my campaign was the
> fact that it is the most active Smalltalk forum there is. People who are
> interested in Smalltalk join the most active forum generally, and this
> includes not only Pharoers, but people from ESUG, Squeak, Cincom, Amber,
> Redline, etc.
>
> So, for example, when I appealed for contributors to the Redline project, I
> should've distinguished the target audience as those groups other than
> Pharoers. This was my failure and I own up to it.
>

But targeting a non-Pharoer audience by posting on a Pharo mail list is not
a good plan for success.   Look at it this way...  If mind share leads to
success, then definitely Pharo is trying to build mind share.  But people
have busy lives with room for only a few interests, so someone you draw to
Redline may end up one less contributor to Pharo.  That may help Redline
and Smalltalk, but Pharo loses.


>
> It is unfortunate that I must use the Pharo forum for this purpose. The
> Smalltalk community is so terribly fragmented that there is no universal
> Smalltalk forum to address, at least, none that is actually *inhabited*.
> Without the ability to address the largest number of Smalltalkers, the SRP
> cannot make any progress. I'm sorry, but I have to be blunt.
>

That is an unfortunate position to be in - but it is not Pharo's problem.
That is, it is not Pharo's burden to solve all the ills of the (Smalltalk)
world.  Indeed, consider that Pharo specifically aspires to be
more-than-Smalltalk. Maybe "that" is part of the spark that draws people to
overcome preconceptions about Smalltalk (although there are mixed opinions
on that, that don't need rehashing right now)

Now some of us do have a passing interest in news of other Smalltalks (well
usually just Amber in the past) - as long as its short and not too
distracting.  Again, people are busy and off-topic (i.e.
non-Pharo) posts add noise that burns time - and so volume is discouraged.
I think it is fair to announce articles that equally discuss Pharo and
other Smalltalk dialects in the greater context of Smalltalk, but not
directly soliciting people for other projects, no matter your good
intentions.


>
> If anyone can offer a practical alternative, I'd like to hear it.
> Otherwise,
> the SRP has only two choices:
>
> 1) Continue what it is doing on the Pharo forum, and be mindful of which
> group(s) I am addressing.
>

I appreciate your ambitions for Smalltalk in general, but I think you risk
further conflict using the Pharo forum as a platform to promote Smalltalk
in general.  It is technically off-topic.  Personally I don't want someone
"leveraging" our community.  I want them "participating" in our community.


>
> 2) Fold up the campaign and leave the destiny of Smalltalk to the Fates.
> Without the ability to reach out to Smalltalkers everywhere, I am
> hopelessly
> disadvantaged.
>


Its a tough choice, but there are a few others you might also consider.

3) Connect with each fragment of Smalltalk in their own forums. Obviously
more work.

4) Align more closely with Pharo or one of the other Smalltalks. Consider
that Smalltalk may be a general concept, and in that moment after you gain
someone's attention, it may be better to have one concrete path to follow
rather than burning their interest trying to choose a path to take.

5) Stick with it but go slower.  I'll start another thread regarding this
on the popularity of programming languages.

I'll leave you to your considerations.
cheers -ben



>
> Regards,
> Richard
>
>

Re: [Pharo-users] Mea Culpa

[horrido]

Any language that has a significant user base, ie, a large number of
applications, will experience resistance to change. The only way to avoid
this is for people NOT to use the language.

The fear of popularization will condemn a language to permanent niche
status. That's fine, if that's what the user community wants. The language
will forever be a "hobbyist" tool.


Sean P. DeNigris wrote
> 
> hernanmd wrote
>> I am not that convinced Smalltalk should be popular
> For me, the goal is "critical mass" - big enough where issues and new
> projects move forward with ease. And this is probably just a few hundred
> percent. Mass popularity brings in people disconnected from the vision.
> Smalltalk for me is prototype Dynabook software. If it was just "a better
> programming environment", I'd still use it, but I doubt there would still
> be a passionate dream for the future of humanity attached to it...





--
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Re: [Pharo-users] Mea Culpa

[blake]

>>Without the ability to address the largest number of Smalltalkers, the SRP
cannot make any progress.<<

Did you do any research on this before embarking? You may not be the first
person who has attempted what you're trying.
​
Often when I'm trying to accomplish something that hasn't previously been
attempted or, if attempted, not attained, I find that I've misunderstood
where the difficulty lies. In very few cases is it merely a matter of
determination.

Looking at others' failures can be instructive.

[Pharo-users] Popular

[Ben Coman]

I found this article on the popularity of programming languages
interesting.
http://www.paulgraham.com/popular.html

It mostly references Lisp, but I think a lot of the same applies to Pharo.
It is quite long so I picked a few points that stood out to me:

Some non-technical points...

* Nothing could be better, for a new technology, than a few years of being
used only by a small number of early adopters. Early adopters are
sophisticated and demanding, and quickly flush out whatever flaws remain in
your technology. When you only have a few users you can be in close contact
with all of them. And early adopters are forgiving when you improve your
system, even if this causes some breakage.

* Users are a double-edged sword. They can help you improve your language,
but they can also deter you from improving it. So choose your users
carefully, and be slow to grow their number. Having users is like
optimization: the wise course is to delay it.

* There are two ways new technology gets introduced: the organic growth
method, and the big bang method. ... Organic growth seems to yield better
technology and richer founders than the big bang method. If you look at the
dominant technologies today, you'll find that most of them grew organically.

* Hackers have to know about a language before they can use it. How are
they to hear? From other hackers. But there has to be some initial group of
hackers using the language for others even to hear about it. I wonder how
large this group has to be; how many users make a critical mass? Off the
top of my head, I'd say twenty.



Some technical points...

* There is one thing more important than brevity to a hacker: being able to
do what you want. In the history of programming languages a surprising
amount of effort has gone into preventing programmers from doing things
considered to be improper. This is a dangerously presumptuous plan ... The
bumbler will shoot himself in the foot anyway ... Good programmers often
want to do dangerous and unsavoury things ... give the programmer access to
as much internal stuff as you can without endangering runtime systems like
the garbage collector.

* It might be a good idea to have an active profiler -- to push performance
data to the programmer instead of waiting for him to come asking for it.
For example, the editor could display bottlenecks in red when the
programmer edits the source code.

* It might be a good idea to make the byte code an official part of the
language, and to allow programmers to use inline byte code in bottlenecks.

* The most important part of design is redesign. Programming languages,
especially, don't get redesigned enough.

cheers -ben

Re: [Pharo-users] Pillar A4 :)

[stepharo]

Here is one on Citezen


Citezen.pdf
Description: Adobe PDF document

Re: [Pharo-users] Pillar A4 :)

[stepharo]

One on Voyage :)


Voyage.pdf
Description: Adobe PDF document

Re: [Pharo-users] Pillar A4 :)

[Sven Van Caekenberghe]

Thanks you: checked in !

> On 22 Jan 2015, at 21:16, stepharo  wrote:
> 
> Hi sven
> 
> here is one of several that I will send :)
> 
> Stef
> 

Re: [Pharo-users] Mea Culpa

[Offray Vladimir Luna Cárdenas]

Hi,

I don't care about popularity, jvm or javascript now. I'm a newbie, but 
I was not drawn to Pharo/Smalltalk because of that. If that were the 
case I would choose an already popular language with javascript and/or 
jvm support. It's not about fear of the unpopular but doesn't caring 
about it (for the narrative in anglo tv series, seems that there is a 
big deal about being popular for North American people, specially in 
adolescence, but I digress).


I share the attraction for the Dynabook idea and how a system could be 
understood by a single person.I have my own ideas about what a computer 
mediated experience could be, some related with the dynabook, some 
others don't and Smalltalk lets me explore/express some of that ideas 
more fluidly.


What I would like from Smalltalk is to have is a better support for 
integration with the "external" world of computing, starting with 
documentation pandoc/TeX/luatex, fossil dvcs, then (I)Python, mind 
mapping and so on.


I think that SRP has a "flaw" of showing itself as some kind of way to 
save Smalltalk of its unpopular destiny, not being on top 10 of TIOBE or 
being a niche platform, but for me that's not a cruel destiny and if it 
were that's not the best way to fight against it, but by building stuff 
that more people can use. Talking by making instead of talking by 
talking. We can start with some small community and spread from there 
(interactive documentation is my approach).


So may be the best way of SRP to serve Smalltalk could be to not be so 
"self-serving" about its own goals (popularity, jvm, javascript, 
enterprise, TIOBE) and show the diversity of views and concerns of the 
Smalltalk community. To be a place for diversity in Smalltalk (may be a 
curator of dispersed experiences elsewhere).


I hope it helps,

Offray


El 22/01/15 a las 13:03, horrido escribió:

Any language that has a significant user base, ie, a large number of
applications, will experience resistance to change. The only way to avoid
this is for people NOT to use the language.

The fear of popularization will condemn a language to permanent niche
status. That's fine, if that's what the user community wants. The language
will forever be a "hobbyist" tool.


Sean P. DeNigris wrote


hernanmd wrote

I am not that convinced Smalltalk should be popular

For me, the goal is "critical mass" - big enough where issues and new
projects move forward with ease. And this is probably just a few hundred
percent. Mass popularity brings in people disconnected from the vision.
Smalltalk for me is prototype Dynabook software. If it was just "a better
programming environment", I'd still use it, but I doubt there would still
be a passionate dream for the future of humanity attached to it...






--
View this message in context: 
http://forum.world.st/Mea-Culpa-tp4800840p4801047.html
Sent from the Pharo Smalltalk Users mailing list archive at Nabble.com.

Re: [Pharo-users] Pillar A4 :)

[Offray Vladimir Luna Cárdenas]

Hi Stef,

Do you have the Pillar file for this one? I would like to see how do you 
deal with image positioning.


Cheers,

Offray

El 22/01/15 a las 15:36, stepharo escribió:

One on Voyage :)

Re: [Pharo-users] Pillar A4 :)

[stepharo]

Bloc :)



Bloc.pdf
Description: Adobe PDF document

Re: [Pharo-users] Popular

[horrido]

So let me see if I understand this...

Pharo is not ready for prime time because it's still gestating? At what
point will Pharo be ready for everyone in the world to use? Five years from
now? Ten years?

And when it is ready for the world to use, can we be sure that the world
will use it? "If you build it, they will come." Really??

Have we not learned that grassroots guarantee nothing? The language
landscape is littered with dead or dying languages that failed to rise above
grassroots.

At some point, people will begin to use your language (you hope). And when
that time comes (sooner than 5 years?), organic growth will be a lot
tougher.

You don't get to choose your users; the users choose your language. Of
course, you can always screw them by pulling the rug from underneath them.
Not nice, but who said you have to be nice?

The idea that hackers know, or can determine, what is a "good" language
strikes me as rather presumptuous and incorrect. And whose definition of
"good" are we using anyway?


Ben Coman wrote
> I found this article on the popularity of programming languages
> interesting.
> http://www.paulgraham.com/popular.html
> 
> It mostly references Lisp, but I think a lot of the same applies to Pharo.
> It is quite long so I picked a few points that stood out to me:
> 
> Some non-technical points...
> 
> * Nothing could be better, for a new technology, than a few years of being
> used only by a small number of early adopters. Early adopters are
> sophisticated and demanding, and quickly flush out whatever flaws remain
> in
> your technology. When you only have a few users you can be in close
> contact
> with all of them. And early adopters are forgiving when you improve your
> system, even if this causes some breakage.
> 
> * Users are a double-edged sword. They can help you improve your language,
> but they can also deter you from improving it. So choose your users
> carefully, and be slow to grow their number. Having users is like
> optimization: the wise course is to delay it.
> 
> * There are two ways new technology gets introduced: the organic growth
> method, and the big bang method. ... Organic growth seems to yield better
> technology and richer founders than the big bang method. If you look at
> the
> dominant technologies today, you'll find that most of them grew
> organically.
> 
> * Hackers have to know about a language before they can use it. How are
> they to hear? From other hackers. But there has to be some initial group
> of
> hackers using the language for others even to hear about it. I wonder how
> large this group has to be; how many users make a critical mass? Off the
> top of my head, I'd say twenty.
> 
> 
> 
> Some technical points...
> 
> * There is one thing more important than brevity to a hacker: being able
> to
> do what you want. In the history of programming languages a surprising
> amount of effort has gone into preventing programmers from doing things
> considered to be improper. This is a dangerously presumptuous plan ... The
> bumbler will shoot himself in the foot anyway ... Good programmers often
> want to do dangerous and unsavoury things ... give the programmer access
> to
> as much internal stuff as you can without endangering runtime systems like
> the garbage collector.
> 
> * It might be a good idea to have an active profiler -- to push
> performance
> data to the programmer instead of waiting for him to come asking for it.
> For example, the editor could display bottlenecks in red when the
> programmer edits the source code.
> 
> * It might be a good idea to make the byte code an official part of the
> language, and to allow programmers to use inline byte code in bottlenecks.
> 
> * The most important part of design is redesign. Programming languages,
> especially, don't get redesigned enough.
> 
> cheers -ben





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Re: [Pharo-users] Pillar A4 :)

[stepharo]

Le 22/1/15 21:56, Offray Vladimir Luna Cárdenas a écrit :

Hi Stef,

Do you have the Pillar file for this one? I would like to see how do 
you deal with image positioning.


It is made with omnigraffle.



Cheers,

Offray

El 22/01/15 a las 15:36, stepharo escribió:

One on Voyage :)

Re: [Pharo-users] Mea Culpa

[stepharo]

We changed a lot between 20 and 30 and still mariano migrated all its 
development in one afternoon.

So changing does not mean breaking systematically api.

Stef

Re: [Pharo-users] Mea Culpa

[horrido]

In fact, I did look for previous attempts to "market" Smalltalk. I found
nothing. All previous attempts to popularize Smalltalk have been grassroots,
ie, using word of mouth; giving talks and seminars at conferences and local
user groups; a scattered (and somewhat chaotic) collection of blogs and
websites. Nothing that /focuses/ attention.

A personal note: it was word of mouth that got me hooked on Smalltalk. A
close friend of mine from Cherniak Software persuaded me to look into
Smalltalk. If not for him, I'd *still* think Smalltalk was a dying language
today.


blake wrote
>>>Without the ability to address the largest number of Smalltalkers, the
SRP
> cannot make any progress.<<
> 
> Did you do any research on this before embarking? You may not be the first
> person who has attempted what you're trying.
> ​
> Often when I'm trying to accomplish something that hasn't previously been
> attempted or, if attempted, not attained, I find that I've misunderstood
> where the difficulty lies. In very few cases is it merely a matter of
> determination.
> 
> Looking at others' failures can be instructive.





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Re: [Pharo-users] The Smalltalk Report issue

[stepharo]

Hi Raphael

bring a USB at PharoDays and bother me and you will get all the 
Smalltalk Report pdfs :)



Hi Pharoers,

I'm looking for The Smalltalk Report volume 6 issue 4 (1997) because 
I'd like to read the first article mentioning refactoring by Kent 
Beck: "Make it run, Make it right: Desing through Refactoring" 
published in this number.


I've found the following archive from 1991 to 1996: 
http://www.macqueen.us/stIndex.html


Anyone know where can I found this old issue or at least the article?

Thank you.

Re: [Pharo-users] Mea Culpa

[horrido]

Offray wrote
> I think that SRP has a "flaw" of showing itself as some kind of way to 
> save Smalltalk of its unpopular destiny, not being on top 10 of TIOBE or 
> being a niche platform, but for me that's not a cruel destiny and if it 
> were that's not the best way to fight against it, but by building stuff 
> that more people can use. Talking by making instead of talking by 
> talking. We can start with some small community and spread from there 
> (interactive documentation is my approach).

This is the popular "if you build it, they will come" philosophy. It /may/
work, but I seriously doubt it.

> So may be the best way of SRP to serve Smalltalk could be to not be so 
> "self-serving" about its own goals (popularity, jvm, javascript, 
> enterprise, TIOBE) and show the diversity of views and concerns of the 
> Smalltalk community. To be a place for diversity in Smalltalk (may be a 
> curator of dispersed experiences elsewhere).

I don't understand what you mean by "self-serving". The SRP does not serve
itself – it serves *you*, the Smalltalk community. It's sole purpose is to
promote your language, to raise it in the public consciousness, to get
people to try it. There is no other agenda.

Of course, whether or not you /want/ this attention is a different question.

> I hope it helps,
> 
> Offray





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Re: [Pharo-users] The Smalltalk Report issue

[stepharo]

currently uploading ST issues at
http://sdmeta.gforge.inria.fr/TheSmalltalkReport/
grab them when they will be available :)
We should put them on torrents

Stef

Le 22/1/15 00:52, Rafael Luque a écrit :

Hi Pharoers,

I'm looking for The Smalltalk Report volume 6 issue 4 (1997) because 
I'd like to read the first article mentioning refactoring by Kent 
Beck: "Make it run, Make it right: Desing through Refactoring" 
published in this number.


I've found the following archive from 1991 to 1996: 
http://www.macqueen.us/stIndex.html


Anyone know where can I found this old issue or at least the article?

Thank you.

Re: [Pharo-users] Glorp on Pharo 4

[Craig]

Sven,

It took a bit, but I figured it out.

If you try to login with a login that has previously been used, then you get
this DNU message.

I was following your "reddit-st-in-10-cool-pharo-classes" and it happened
when I ran the first test.
This was the second time that the DefaultLogin was used (it was lazily
initialised by the create tables call).
When I nill-ed out the DefaultLogin the tests all passed.

Craig


-Original Message-
From: Pharo-users [mailto:pharo-users-boun...@lists.pharo.org] On Behalf Of
Sven Van Caekenberghe
Sent: 22 January 2015 10:19 AM
To: Any question about pharo is welcome
Subject: Re: [Pharo-users] Glorp on Pharo 4

A comma is indeed a (binary) message. It concatenates two Collections, like
Strings.

Please provide more details on how you try to connect and what error you
get, exactly.

> On 22 Jan 2015, at 08:26, Craig  wrote:
> 
> From: Sven Van Caekenberghe
> Sent: 22 January 2015 08:37 AM
> 
>> What exactly do you mean ?
>> 
>> Reading the link above that seems to be correct, at first glance, 
>> maybe I
> don't see it.
> 
> Sven,
> 
> Forgive me, I'm new to Pharo, but I'm sure that in Pharo you don't use 
> commas to separate parameters in a message.  I don't know of any 
> syntactical significance of the comma.
> I saw this after I got the ", does not understand connectionArgs" 
> message when trying to connect to my Postgres database.  I take this 
> to mean that Pharo tried to send the connectionArgs message to the ',' 
> ByteString.
> 
> Craig
> 
> 

Re: [Pharo-users] Mea Culpa

[offray]

Hi,

On 2015-01-22 16:27, horrido wrote:

Offray wrote

I think that SRP has a "flaw" of showing itself as some kind of way to
save Smalltalk of its unpopular destiny, not being on top 10 of TIOBE 
or
being a niche platform, but for me that's not a cruel destiny and if 
it
were that's not the best way to fight against it, but by building 
stuff

that more people can use. Talking by making instead of talking by
talking. We can start with some small community and spread from there
(interactive documentation is my approach).


This is the popular "if you build it, they will come" philosophy. It 
/may/

work, but I seriously doubt it.



No. I don't believe in the build -> come assumption. Is more like 
non-popular but meaninful in the context I care about by the 
transformations it empowers on that context and with the potential to go 
beyond that context. Think small, but interconnected.



So may be the best way of SRP to serve Smalltalk could be to not be so
"self-serving" about its own goals (popularity, jvm, javascript,
enterprise, TIOBE) and show the diversity of views and concerns of the
Smalltalk community. To be a place for diversity in Smalltalk (may be 
a

curator of dispersed experiences elsewhere).


I don't understand what you mean by "self-serving". The SRP does not 
serve
itself – it serves *you*, the Smalltalk community. It's sole purpose is 
to

promote your language, to raise it in the public consciousness, to get
people to try it. There is no other agenda.

Of course, whether or not you /want/ this attention is a different 
question.




I mean self-serving in the sense that is about making Smalltalk popular, 
advocating for enterprise, jvm or javascript, which are goals traced by 
the project itself. I don't think that they're not important (at least 
for some in the community), but I think that they don't reflect the 
various concerns and potentials that can help to Smalltalk as a broader 
community.


Trying to listen the community __before__ tracing the goals for SRP is 
my main message here. A more "etnographer" approach instead of the 
"saleman" one, if I can make the analogy.


Cheers,

Offray

Re: [Pharo-users] The Smalltalk Report issue

[Marcus Denker]

We have them in the ESUG archive:

http://esug.org/data/HistoricalDocuments/TheSmalltalkReport/ 


but this is only till 1996.


> On 22 Jan 2015, at 23:02, stepharo  wrote:
> 
> currently uploading ST issues at
>http://sdmeta.gforge.inria.fr/TheSmalltalkReport/
> grab them when they will be available :)
> We should put them on torrents
> 
> Stef
> 
> Le 22/1/15 00:52, Rafael Luque a écrit :
>> Hi Pharoers,
>> 
>> I'm looking for The Smalltalk Report volume 6 issue 4 (1997) because I'd 
>> like to read the first article mentioning refactoring by Kent Beck: "Make it 
>> run, Make it right: Desing through Refactoring" published in this number.
>> 
>> I've found the following archive from 1991 to 1996: 
>> http://www.macqueen.us/stIndex.html
>> 
>> Anyone know where can I found this old issue or at least the article?
>> 
>> Thank you.
> 
> 

[Pharo-users] The SRP Has Moved

[horrido]

By now, every Smalltalker and his dog have heard about the Smalltalk
Renaissance Program. So it is no longer necessary to stay in the Pharo
forum.

I have moved all future SRP-related discussions to the /English/ forum at
forum.world.st. I ask everyone who is even remotely interested in the
campaign to join the English forum (aka  Smalltalk Research
  ).

I remind everyone that the SRP is about you and your community. Without you,
there is no campaign. Please participate.

Thank you.



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Re: [Pharo-users] Popular

[Ben Coman]

Richard, My post was somewhat in response to your campaign, but not trying
to discourage you.  Its just providing some counterpoint to consider in the
big picture. Maybe I should not of posted another opinion piece so soon on
top of the other threads, so probably even though you can pick holes in my
answers to your questions, some advance notice I'm going to _try_ limiting
further followups to let things settle down a bit.

On Fri, Jan 23, 2015 at 5:08 AM, horrido  wrote:

> So let me see if I understand this...
>
> Pharo is not ready for prime time because it's still gestating?


For some (the early adopters) Pharo is already ready for prime time.
People are doing successful business with Pharo now!  Successful enough to
want to be paying members of the Pharo Consortium.


> At what point will Pharo be ready for everyone in the world to use?

Five years from now? Ten years?
>

I agree with your implication.  It is not beneficial to treat Pharo as
unready-for-the-masses for an extended period.  Now PG says you need:

1) a free implementation - Got it! Pharo's MIT license.

2) something to hack - Got it! There is the IDE itself, the PBE
develops a game, and there is a broad base of open source applications and
libraries.

3) a book - Currently we have only half of this. We have a very good
book in PBE, but it is outdated several years.  Early adopters and existing
Pharo users can work around this, but for potential incoming masses, an up
to date book is a critical aspect.  There is current activity to update PBE
for Pharo 4 (and now I realise I should help with it more, Thanks for
clarifying my thinking on this.)  To bring in the masses before this update
is ready I believe could do more harm than good.  It would be embarrassing
and a great disappointed to push a campaign generating an influx of users
that end up criticizing this aspect, and missing the chance for them to
experience the value of Pharo - and you might only get one chance to create
a good impression.

So for me, right now PBE for Pharo 4 is the critical dependency before
pushing a big advertising agenda, with a plan to align such with the Pharo
4 release.

In addition, I consider running on pure 64-bit OS to be critical to gain
credibility in the wider community.  In my conservative view, for outside
consumption I don't think its critical this be completed for Pharo 4, but
aligning the release of a technology preview would be very nice.


>
> And when it is ready for the world to use, can we be sure that the world
> will use it? "If you build it, they will come." Really??
>

That is a null point.  That would be the same in ten years, five years and
today.  Besides, we are also building Pharo for ourselves.  Indeed, "Every
good work of software starts by scratching a developer's personal itch. [1]
"  Of course we want Pharo to grow because that will help fund its
improvement and sustainability.  But I don't think we need the whole world
(yet).  That brings other complications, like maybe design by committee.
PG says "Everyone knows that it's not a good idea to have a language
designed by a committee. Committees yield bad design. But I think the worst
danger of committees is that they interfere with redesign"  and that last
point is important to consider for Pharo's vision [2].

[1]
http://www.catb.org/esr/writings/homesteading/cathedral-bazaar/ar01s02.html
[2] https://gforge.inria.fr/frs/download.php/30434/PharoVision.pdf (I think
an update is in progress)



> Have we not learned that grassroots guarantee nothing? The language
> landscape is littered with dead or dying languages that failed to rise
> above
> grassroots.
>

Nothing is guaranteed.  But Pharo's steady organic growth makes me
optimistic.  My point is, Pharo has not had a BIG advertising campaign
before.  Growing organically has perhaps allowed us to get by with a few
loose ends (like documentation) with the subsequent volume of newcomer
questions arising from this being manageable.  At least newcomers get a
positive impression from fast response to their queries.   A big influx a
novice queries might result in either:
* Pharo improvements delayed as the experts spend all   delayed in
improving Pharo; or
* newcomers being frustrated with questions going unanswered.

The advantage of organic growth is that you have a steady progression of
people from novice to journeyman to master.  "Ideally" the pool of
journeyman available to answer novice questions grows at the same rate as
the pool of newcomers grows.  I consider my own journey.  I lurked for a
long while.  Then I started contributing to the discussion.  Of course, the
easiest thing to contribute is "an opinion" -- and there is some value in
that, but it doesn't actually create code. Actually it drags other coders
away from their coding, so productivity goes down (so maybe sorry also for
this thread).  But its an investment in the future that hopefully the
newcomer grows into a code contributor.  At this stage I was