Tony Garnock-Jones recently announced on the Squeak Developers mailing list (here) a new contribution to the Squeak community: Multicast, a project that brings UDP multicast socket support to Squeak.
The project has been published on SqueakSource (here), where you can obtain the code and experiment with it directly. Tony also provided the file-in code with his announcement.
What Does Multicast Do?
Multicast provides the necessary support code for creating and using UDP multicast sockets within Squeak. This makes it possible for Squeak images to participate in group communication over networks – an important feature for distributed applications and collaborative tools. Check out the mailing list thread for more information on what multicasting does.
Current Status and Platform Support
- Tested on macOS: Initial testing has been done successfully.
- Linux support: Testing is planned soon.
- Windows users: Contributions are welcome – help testing Multicast on Windows would be especially valuable.
Requirements
To use Multicast, you will need:
- A current Trunk version of Squeak
- The SocketPlugin enabled
How to Help
Community involvement is encouraged! If you are running Squeak on Linux or Windows, testing Multicast and reporting results would be a great way to contribute.
Have a great time with Smalltalk and keep on Squeaking!
Photo by GuerrillaBuzz from Unsplash: https://unsplash.com/photos/a-group-of-blue-lights-iFj_9n695ns
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