The Weekly Squeak

From Chris Muller:

I am pleased to announce version 1.5 of Magma for Squeak 5, now available on SqueakMap.  Magma allows multiple Squeak images to collaborate on a single, large object model, with the robustness and control expected from a database.  It offers the most transparent db access possible for Smalltalk, affording the user the ability to develop complex, performant designs, iteratively, on-the-fly.

It has been designed for “continuous flow” development, the way Smalltalkers like and expect to work.  For example, I could have connections open to 3 separate databases, open transactions in any of them, and having restructured a class hierarchy in the model, and stepping through the debugger when that “final boarding call” for my flight is announced.

Thanks to the image, this scenario has never been a problem for Smalltalkers and Magma is deliberate to ensure this flow is maintained.  Once at 10K feet, I can resume stepping through that same debugger within 5 seconds of restarting the image, DB connections intact, commit my transactions when I’m ready, done.  Magma handles every aspect of that use-case correctly even in multi-user environments, and has so many safety and integrity features, it is the safest way to develop and keep a model in Squeak.

This release coincides with the release of Squeak 5, and has many improvements and fixes over Magma 1.4.  Detailed notes about these improvements are available at http://wiki.squeak.org/squeak/6209.

– Chris