The Weekly Squeak

Tag: 4.1

  • Squeak 4.1 released

    Squeak 4.1 has now been released! This version combines the licence change occurring in the 4.0 release with the development work that has been going on while the re-licensing process took place.

    Much of the work in this release has been focused on fundamental improvements. Major achievements are the integration of Cog’s closure implementation, the improved UI look and feel, the new anti-aliased fonts, the core library improvements, and the modularity advances.

    One key focus for this release was to address the issues that have been known to frustrate developers using Squeak for the first time. A much improved set of UI widgets, the new menu bar including the fast search control, integrated help, improved test coverage, more class and method comments, and integrated syntax highlighting all make the system more accessible. The new full closures, the new traits implementation, multiple improvements to the collections and streams classes, the new NumberParser hierarchy all help make development easier and produce cleaner, faster code. Deploying your completed applications will be made easier by the work done on making many modules unloadable, and by support for other cleanup activities.

    To download the Squeak 4.1 release please visit http://ftp.squeak.org/4.1 or go to the squeak.org homepage and use the Download links on the right hand side.

  • Final preparation for 4.1 now under way

    Following the successful release of Squeak 4.0, which was the first version of Squeak to be cleaned of all non-open-source code, there was enthusiasm to quickly get the next release out of the door. This was driven by concerns that the long and difficult process of re-licensing and re-writing meant that many areas of the 4.0 release were a long way behind the current state of Squeak.

    As a result, there has been a concerted effort to move quickly to release version 4.1, incorporating many bugfixes, thorough test suites, much faster and cleaner code in many areas, the removal of obsolete code, and a much more consistent and clean user interface. It will also offer a much simpler and more robust installation process for new users.

    The work on preparing for the 4.1 release is now drawing to a close, but more help is still welcome! You can support the work by downloading the latest release candidate from http://ftp.squeak.org/trunk/ (and possibly the 4.0 sources file) and:

    • ensuring all tests are green,
    • contributing fixes for issues marked as critical for 4.1 on bugs.squeak.org (or any other fixes you’ve been hiding up your sleeves),
    • checking that your packages on SqueakSource and SqueakMap install correctly in the new version,
    • checking that the new Windows installation process works on your configuration,
    • and of course, keeping an eye on the squeak-dev mailing list to ensure that you’re not duplicating work.

    We expect a lot of interest in this new release, and want to ensure that we give new users a great first impression of Squeak. If you want to contribute to this work, now’s the time!