The Weekly Squeak

Category: Squeak

  • Squeak 3.10 now released!

    Squeak 3.10

    Squeak version 3.10 has just been released onto the ftp server. This marks the completion of the development effort and gives Squeak developers an opportunity to check compatibility of packages and ports; work is still under way to produce final and fully packaged release files and once this has been completed, the squeak.org images on the Download page will be updated to point to fully packaged versions of this new release. Normal Squeak users are advised to wait for the packaged versions to be made available before upgrading.

    The goal of the 3.10 release was to improve the process of making Squeak releases and to improve the quality of the code. The release team concentrated on improving the coverage of unit tests, in making Squeak more modular, and in getting rid of non-core and unsupported code. In addition, many bugs were fixed.

    Highlights were:
    – Removal of non-core code.
    – Consistent use of Monticello to manage package dependencies.
    – Use of Package Universes for managing package compatibility issues.
    – Bug policy requiring all fixes to include unit tests.
    – Image fully tested on Mac OS X Tiger, Windows XP and Simply MEPIS 6.5 Linux.

    Thanks to the 3.10 release team including Ralph Johnson, Edgar De Cleene, and the many other Squeakers who contributed ideas, bug-fixes and support. Their work has given us an excellent release, and one which will be a great starting point for eventual progress to 4.0.

    Discussions and planning for 3.11 is already beginning on the mailing list, including topics such as:
    – the removal of major packages such as eToys and Nebraska to become loadable via Package Universes, and use of MinimalMorphic instead of the full Morphic suite.
    – migration to the improved packaging and loading functionality of tools currently under development such as DeltaStreams or Monticello2.
    – all code under old licences has been identified, and its replacement will be a priority.
    If you have an interest in how Squeak develops in the future, now is the time to have your say!

    For more information about this release, see the 3.10 page on the swiki or the welcome notes in the image itself.

    [Edited to clarify status of this release]

  • Squeak accepted into Google Summer of Code 08

    Google Code

    Giovanni Corriga has announced that Squeak is one of the 175 Free and Open Source projects accepted as mentoring organisations for this year’s Google Summer of Code.

    Students interested in joining the programme will receive a stipend of $4,500 and can find out more at the Squeak summary page, and list of proposed projects. You’re encouraged to visit the #squeak and #gsoc irc channels on irc.freenode.org to discuss your application and additional project proposals. Applications open on 24th March, and more details of the process can be found at the GSoC blog.

    Congratulations to Giovanni who managed the application process and everyone who contributed project ideas.

  • Squeak VM now in Debian distro

    Debian

    José L. Redrejo Rodríguez has announced that the Squeak VM is now officially included in the Debian distribution. This reflects the acceptance of the Debian administrators of the completion of the migration of the VM code from the old Apple licence to the MIT licence, (meaning that this page now needs updating). The package should be appearing in the mirrors in short order, see the changelog notice for more details.

    There’s still work to do in removing or re-licensing the remaining legacy code in the images, but this is an important step forward in the recognition of Squeak as Free software.

  • Squeak by Example, 2.0!

    Squeak By Example

    Stéphane Ducasse has just announced that the second edition of Squeak By Example has just been published. It is available for download from the Squeak By Example website, or if you prefer paper to phosphors, you can order a hard copy from print-on-demand publishers lulu.com for only €16.18/$20.10/£11.07.

    Licensed under the creative commons by-sa licence, the first edition was a great success, with over 20,000 downloads in less than six months. For the second edition, the authors Oscar Nierstrasz, Stéphane Ducasse, Damien Pollet and Andrew P. Black, have reviewed and revised the contents based on feedback from readers.

    At over 300 pages, the book is an excellent introduction to developing in Squeak, and the overall organization and choice of topics makes it a great reference work.

  • The Squeak Foundation Board 2008

    Gaylord Opryland

    Hi all Squeakers!

    Ok, the Squeak Foundation Board Election 2008 ended 19 minutes ago –
    promptly at 18.00 UTC, 8 March.

    For this year we had 437 authorized voters of which 178 voted, that is
    slightly more than 40% voting – a bit disappointing IMHO since we had
    157 voting of 347 last year which gives above 45%.
    On the other hand 178 is more than 157, so we had more voters and thus a
    growing community, which of course is the most important aspect!

    And without further ado I bring you the board for the following year
    starting from NOW. The order reflects the ranking from the election:

    1. Dan Ingalls
    2. Craig Latta
    3. Bert Freudenberg
    4. Yoshiki Ohshima
    5. Tim Rowledge
    6. Randal L. Schwartz
    7. Igor Stasenko

    (more…)

  • Don’t forget to vote!

    Vote badge Just a quick reminder that you only have until 8th March to register your votes for the candidates for the Squeak Foundation Board 2008.

    There are 12 candidates standing for the 7 places and Göran Krampe has posted information on the election process including statements by the candidates.

    Voting is open to all Squeakers rated as Apprentice or higher on people.squeakfoundation.org. If you’re eligible to vote, you should have received an email at your registered address.

  • Hashing in Smalltalk

    Hashing in SmalltalkAndrés Valloud has just published “Hashing in Smalltalk: Theory and Practice” on Lulu. He describes the book as providing “a strong foundation for hashing, hash functions, and their application in the context of software development. The first part develops hashing and hash functions from first principles. The behavior characteristics required of hash functions are examined in detail. A thorough description of how hash functions are constructed follows, complete with a rich survey of existing hash functions. But often times existing hash functions are inappropriate for the task at hand. To address this problem, the second part shows how to build novel hash functions that are both efficient and of very high quality for many of the types of data that occur in practice.”

    The book compares algorithms and implementations of hashing across the main Smalltalks (Squeak, Dolphin, Visual Works and VisualAge), as well as other languages including C, C++, C#, Java, OCaml and ML. It’s available for $40/€32.20/£22.04 .

    Andrés has also posted a great illustration of the dangers of the use of inappropriate hashing functions.

  • Randal Schwartz Talks With Leo about Squeak, EToys and OLPC

    Randal Schwartz and Leo

    Don’t miss this fun new video from Randal Schwartz and Leo about Squeak, EToys and OLPC.  Randal builds a very nice car demo.

  • International Squeak Live Video Conference Between Nepal and Japan

    Nepal and Japan

    Hi Squeakers,
    Enclosed kindly find the information about International Squeak Live Video Conference in Nepal and Japan to be held Feb 28, 2008.  If you are interested to contribute or participate, you are most welcome.

    Best regards,
    Yogesh Shrestha

    International Squeak Live Video Conference (pdf)

  • 16th International Smalltalk Joint Conference *Call for Contributions*

    ESUGWelcome

    ———————————————————————
    16th International Smalltalk Joint Conference – Call for Contributions

    August 25-29, 2008 – Amsterdam, the Netherlands

    http://www.esug.org/conferences/2008/
    ———————————————————————-

    For the past 16 years, the European Smalltalk User Group (ESUG) has organised the International Smalltalk Conference, a lively forum on cutting edge software technologies that attract people from both academia and industry for a whole week. The attendees are both engineers using Smalltalk in business and students and teachers using Smalltalk both for research and didactic purposes.

    As every year, this year’s edition of the largest European Smalltalk event will include the regular Smalltalk developers conference with renowned invited speakers, a Smalltalk camp that proves fruitful for interactions and discussions. Besides, this year will be held the 4th edition of the Innovation Technology Awards where prizes will be awarded to authors of best pieces of Smalltalk-related projects.

    You can support the ESUG conference in many different ways:

    * Sponsor the conference. New sponsoring packages are described at http://www.esug.org/supportesug/becomeasponsor/
    * Submit a talk, a software or a paper to one of the events. See below.
    * Attend the conference. We’d like to beat the previous record of attendance (116 people at Köthen, Germany in 2004)!
    * Students can get free registration and hosting if they enroll into the the Student Volunteers program. See below.

    The conference features the following events:

    * Camp Smalltalk – There will be a Smalltalk camp the 23-24th of august
    * Developers Forum
    * Technology Forum

    Developers Forum : International Smalltalk Developers Conference
    ——————
    This year we are looking for YOUR experience on using Smalltalk. The list of topics includes, but is not limited to the following:

    * XP practices
    * Development tools
    * Experience reports
    * Model driven development
    * Web development
    * Team management
    * Meta-Modeling
    * Security
    * New libraries & frameworks
    * Educational material
    * Embedded systems and robotics
    * SOA and Web services
    * Interaction with other programming languages

    Submissions due on 1st June 2008
    Notification of acceptance on 15 of June 2008 More information at http://www.esug.org/conferences/2008

    How to sumbit?
    ——————
    Pay attention: the places are limited so do not wait till the last minute to apply. Prospective presenters should submit a request to esug-info@esug.org
    following the template below. Please use this template since the email will be automatically processed!

    Subject: [ESUG 2008 Developers] + your name

    First Name:

    Last Name:

    Email where you can always be reached:

    Title:

    Abstract:

    Bio:

    Any presentation not respecting this form will be discarded automatically

    Technology Forum
    ——————
    We are proud to announce the 4th Innovation Technology Awards. The top
    3 teams with the most innovative software will receive, respectively, 500 Euros, 300 Euros and 200 Euros during an awards ceremony at the conference. Developers of any Smalltalk-based software are welcome to compete.
    More information at http://www.esug.org/conferences/2008

    Student Volunteer Program
    ——————
    If you are a student wanting to attend ESUG, have you considered being a student volunteer? Student volunteers help keep the conference running smoothly; in return, they have free accommodations, while still having most of the time to enjoy the conference.
    More information at
    http://www.esug.org/conferences/2008

    Esug Student Volunteers Program

    We hope to see you there and have fun together.