Nabble - Squeak - News

talk on Newspeak online

2008-04-17T23:42:42Z

Hi,

Gilad Bracha's talk on the Newspeak language (which he gave at the
Hasso-Plattner-Institut in Potsdam, Germany on March 11) is now online
at http://www.tele-task.de/page50_lecture3490.html.

Best,

Michael
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Re: Fwd: Weekly Squeak on Aida mailing list

2008-03-31T07:13:52Z

2008/3/31 Ron Teitelbaum <Ron@...>:

+1

Ron

--
Giovanni Giorgi
Software Architect -- Senior Consultant
http://blog.objectsroot.com/
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RE: Fwd: Weekly Squeak on Aida mailing list

2008-03-31T06:26:44Z

+1

Ron

> -----Original Message-----
> From: news-bounces@... [mailto:news-
> bounces@...] On Behalf Of Michael Haupt
> Sent: Monday, March 31, 2008 5:42 AM
> To: The mailing list for the Squeak News Team
> Subject: [News] Fwd: Weekly Squeak on Aida mailing list
>
> Dear all,
>
> it seems the recent discussions have increased visibility. :-)
>
> What do you think about Janko's idea? I'm all for it.
>
> Best,
>
> Michael
>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Janko Mivšek <janko.mivsek@...>
> Date: Mon, Mar 31, 2008 at 12:14 AM
> Subject: Weekly Squeak on Aida mailing list
> To: Michael Haupt <mhaupt@...>
>
>
> Hi Michael,
>
> We had a discussion about that recently in Aida community and decided to
> invite a Weekly Squeak newspaper on our mailing list too. So if you are
> for, you can subscribe here: http://www.aidaweb.si/community.html
>
> Keep on good work!
> Janko
>
> --
> Janko Mivšek
> AIDA/Web
> Smalltalk Web Application Server
> http://www.aidaweb.si
> _______________________________________________
> News mailing list
> News@...
> http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/news

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Fwd: Weekly Squeak on Aida mailing list

2008-03-31T02:42:25Z

Dear all,

it seems the recent discussions have increased visibility. :-)

What do you think about Janko's idea? I'm all for it.

Best,

Michael

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Janko Mivšek <janko.mivsek@...>
Date: Mon, Mar 31, 2008 at 12:14 AM
Subject: Weekly Squeak on Aida mailing list
To: Michael Haupt <mhaupt@...>

Hi Michael,

We had a discussion about that recently in Aida community and decided to
invite a Weekly Squeak newspaper on our mailing list too. So if you are
for, you can subscribe here: http://www.aidaweb.si/community.html

Keep on good work!
Janko

--
Janko Mivšek
AIDA/Web
Smalltalk Web Application Server
http://www.aidaweb.si
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Re: eToys article on Linux.com

2008-03-26T15:11:45Z

If there is an interest to publish link to Joe Barr's eToys article on Squeak
Weekly, please let me know, I can provide wording and the compulsory image,

Milan

On 2008 March 25, Milan Zimmermann wrote:

> Linux.com published Joe Barr's great introductory article about eToys.
> While the article concentrates on OLPC, it also provides instructions how
> to download and install eToys for users who do not own OLPC.
>
> The second part is devoted to a detail description of how to create a new
> project and where to get help (Suggests Squeak Beginners list, I would say
> squeakland@..., or etoys@... may be a good Cc option).
>
> Article is at
>
> http://www.linux.com/articles/130014?
> _______________________________________________
> News mailing list
> News@...
> http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/news

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Re: Summary e-mail distribution

2008-03-25T05:13:55Z

On Tue, 25 Mar 2008 11:33:43 +0100, Michael Haupt wrote:

> Dear News team,
>
> in the light of the recent razzmatazz on the Seaside list, I would
> like to propose that we restrict the default distribution of Weekly
> Squeak Summary e-mails to the announcements, squeak-dev and beginners
> lists.
>
> We could think about something like target-specific Summaries, e.g., a
> collection of all Seaside-related news items posted to the Seaside
> list, VM-related news to vm-dev, and so forth. I would think of this
> as a service from the News team to the various (sub-)communities, but
> I am unsure whether this would be regarded as unsolicited albeit
> on-topic noise.

How about mentioning the respective related-but-other-target specific,
most recent link(s) on the (sub-)community distribution, as if they'd
belong to the famous a.o.b. item list.

/Klaus

> Best,
>
> Michael
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Summary e-mail distribution

2008-03-25T03:33:43Z

Dear News team,

in the light of the recent razzmatazz on the Seaside list, I would
like to propose that we restrict the default distribution of Weekly
Squeak Summary e-mails to the announcements, squeak-dev and beginners
lists.

We could think about something like target-specific Summaries, e.g., a
collection of all Seaside-related news items posted to the Seaside
list, VM-related news to vm-dev, and so forth. I would think of this
as a service from the News team to the various (sub-)communities, but
I am unsure whether this would be regarded as unsolicited albeit
on-topic noise.

Best,

Michael
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eToys article on Linux.com

2008-03-24T17:48:47Z

Linux.com published Joe Barr's great introductory article about eToys. While
the article concentrates on OLPC, it also provides instructions how to
download and install eToys for users who do not own OLPC.

The second part is devoted to a detail description of how to create a new
project and where to get help (Suggests Squeak Beginners list, I would say
squeakland@..., or etoys@... may be a good Cc option).

Article is at

http://www.linux.com/articles/130014?
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Squeak News team Report - Feb 2008

2008-03-02T06:45:10Z

Hello Everybody,

This is your monthly News report for Feb 2008.

A cold snap has locked the east coast. There has been lots of snow and ice,
but things are starting to thaw. I saw some of my bees flying just the
other day so spring is on the way.

And now the news:

We had 13,004 hits for the leap month of February. The one missing day from
(29 instead of 30) is not enough to account for the drop in numbers. It
must be the lack of good pictures from Craig. We are down 2000 hits from
last month and 25,000 from the month of PARC pictures.

Our top articles were

The Golight: Tool Support for Test-Drive
<http://weeklysqueak.wordpress.com/2008/02/07/the-golight-tool-support-for-t
est-driven-development/> 3,398 hits
Qwaq releases Hydra multi-core Squeak VM
<http://weeklysqueak.wordpress.com/2008/02/21/qwaq-releases-hydra-multi-core
-squeak-vm/> 2,329 hits
Hashing in Smalltalk
<http://weeklysqueak.wordpress.com/2008/02/25/hashing-in-smalltalk/>
769 hits
IANAL - But they are! SFLC Guide to FOSS
<http://weeklysqueak.wordpress.com/2008/02/15/ianal-but-they-are-sflc-guide-
to-foss-legal-issues/> 580 hits

We had 9 articles in February, which is not bad. I would like to thank
Klaus Witzel for helping to find good stories to post. That has been very
helpful to get our numbers up. Like Klaus if you have suggestions for
things you would like to see posted, please feel free to drop the News Team
a line.

On the Political front, the Squeak Election Team Headed by Göran Krampe has
done a wonderful job getting the Squeak Foundation Board 2008 Election
organized and encouraging participation from both the candidates and the
community. The News team looks forward to posting an article about the
results. Please don't forget to vote! Voting helps to show your support
for the Squeak Foundation and all the hard work that the Board does for the
community. You can find out more about the election at:
http://wiki.squeak.org/squeak/6025

Happy Squeaking, I'm Ron Teitelbaum your Squeak News Team Leader.

Have a good day!

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There's no Room 101 Newspeak on The Weekly Squeak?

2008-02-27T04:37:03Z

Hi Ron & all,

did you know

- http://gbracha.blogspot.com/

where Gilad Bracha blogs about Smalltalk and the rest of the (language)
world, also about developing Newspeak with Squeak.

His recent Cutting out Static is great, as are the other parts of his blog
:)

Cheers
Klaus
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FW: News Team Report Jan 2008

2008-02-02T19:57:55Z

Ooops forgot to send this to the news list.

Sorry,
Ron

-----Original Message-----
From: squeak-dev-bounces@...
[mailto:squeak-dev-bounces@...] On Behalf Of Ron
Teitelbaum
Sent: Saturday, February 02, 2008 10:50 PM
To: 'The general-purpose Squeak developers list'
Subject: News Team Report Jan 2008

Hello all and welcome to Leap Month,

This is your News Team report for January 2008

We had 15,645 hits in Jan. This is half what we had last month but we
didn't have any really cool pictures from Craig to post
http://news.squeak.org/2007/12/29/old-smalltalk-pics-from-parc .

What's funny is that those pictures are linked from a lot of places and this
month we still had 1545 hits.

We had 10 articles posted in January.

If you would like to volunteer and help write articles for the Weekly Squeak
please let me know. We could use your help!!

Thanks,

Ron Teitelbaum
Squeak News Team Leader

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Popularity on the rise: Coding (and Consulting) Kid-Style With Scratch

2008-01-07T11:00:49Z

See below, especially "... elective program classes have used Scratch to
deliver consulting and programming services for students at another
school." and "They made products that are real pieces of software, adapted
to the needs of real clients." :)

/Klaus

<quoted from ACM's TechNews>
"Coding (and Consulting) Kid-Style With Scratch"
T.H.E. Journal (12/07); Schaffhauser, Dian

MIT Media Lab's Lifelong Kindergarten research group has developed
Scratch, a programming language designed to help kids learn mathematical
and computational concepts along with the process of design. A paper about
Scratch explains that the language can nurture skills in the areas of
information and communication, thinking and problem-solving, and
interpersonal and self-direction. The Scratch Web site freely offers the
program for download, examples, tutorials, and discussion forums, and
approximately 45,000 people have registered on the site thus far.
Programming via Scratch allows kids to blend together sounds, music,
graphics, and photos by dragging and dropping graphical command blocks
onto a Scripts work area. The program begins with a "sprite" character
that users can manipulate with command blocks, and starting and stopping
scripts involves the user clicking a green flag and a red stop sign
button, respectively. Students in Expo Elementary School teacher Karen
Randall's elective program classes have used Scratch to deliver consulting
and programming services for students at another school. Randall says the
language helped her team experience the process of design in a deeper and
more meaningful way. "They made products that are real pieces of software,
adapted to the needs of real clients," she says.

http://www.thejournal.com/articles/21743

</quote>

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News Report Dec 2007

2008-01-03T06:42:31Z

Happy New Year everyone,

Here is your news report for Dec 2007 and the year.

We had a big hit with Craig's pictures
http://news.squeak.org/2007/12/29/old-smalltalk-pics-from-parc-place/.
There was an amazing amount of interest: 29,614 hits! Thank you!

Craig helped us to beat our record and gave us our best day ever of 17,959
hits on Dec 30 (this was more then all the hits we received last month).
This was a very nice way to end the year.

Our second place post was http://news.squeak.org/2007/12/05/demand-olpc/
with: 1279 hits.

We had only 5 posts for the month.

Our search hits continue to be very strong on search keys that include
'OLPC'.

For the entire year of 2007 we had 179,745 hits. This was our first full
year (total of 16 months).

My impressions of the Weekly Squeak are that we are doing quite well. I've
noticed that there is a lot of talk about Smalltalk and Squeak and we are
receiving a number of links from other communities, blogs and web sites.
I'm sure most of the buzz has been generated by OLPC, Croquet and Seaside
but I would like to believe that we helped a little to raise the awareness
of other developers about the Squeak community and our continued support and
progress. We have a terrific community and I'm looking forward to the new
year of Squeak and Smalltalk.

We are proud to be a part of and support this community.

Thank you for supporting and reading the Weekly Squeak!

Ron Teitelbaum
and The Squeak News Team

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A child's view: even better, there was an animation programme called Etoys

2007-12-13T08:20:06Z

Dad brought home a XO laptop from Nigeria, now look what happened:

- http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7140443.stm

/Klaus
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RE: Project to Build Virtual Learning Platform Within PopularOnline Worlds Wins Financial Support

2007-12-10T14:37:01Z

How's this?

http://news.squeak.org/2007/12/10/virtual-education-a-reality-for-aaron-e-wa
lsh/

Ron

> -----Original Message-----
> From: news-bounces@... [mailto:news-
> bounces@...] On Behalf Of Klaus D. Witzel
> Sent: Monday, December 10, 2007 3:32 PM
> To: The mailing list for the Squeak News Team
> Subject: [News] Project to Build Virtual Learning Platform Within
> PopularOnline Worlds Wins Financial Support
>
> <quote> from ACM's news service,
>
> Chronicle of Higher Education (12/10/07); Foster, Andrea L.
>
> Boston College instructor Aaron E. Walsh is leading a multimillion-dollar
> project backed by the Federation of American Scientists and the Kauffman
> Foundation to develop virtual-reality software that can be used for
> educational purposes.
>
> Researchers are working with an international consortium of colleges,
> research institutes, and companies to develop standards and best practices
> for the virtual-reality platform. The project, called Immersive
> Education, will build on Walsh's experience teaching Boston College
> students online in virtual spaces.
>
> Immersive Education includes plans to create mini-games and interactive
> lessons within virtual spaces, including Second Life, Croquet, and Project
> Wonderland.
>
> At a conference announcing Immersive Education, Walsh demonstrated how
> virtual worlds can be used to teach students about real-world places,
> events, and ideas. During the demonstration, the virtual avatar of a
> student, standing in front of a digital jackal, explained that to the
> ancient Egyptians the jackal helped transport the dead to the underworld.
> Three-dimensional models of archaeological sites and tombs in Egypt,
> developed by the Theban Mapping Project, provided a virtual tour of an
> otherwise inaccessible site. Meanwhile, Gene Koo, a fellow at the Berkman
> Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School, described how
> students at Emerson College and Boston residents are using Second Life to
> foster civic engagement, and how virtual worlds are being used to design
> real-world spaces.
> http://chronicle.com/daily/2007/12/925n.htm
> (Web Link May Require Paid Subscription)
> </quote>
> _______________________________________________
> News mailing list
> News@...
> http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/news

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Project to Build Virtual Learning Platform Within Popular Online Worlds Wins Financial Support

2007-12-10T12:31:51Z

<quote> from ACM's news service,

Chronicle of Higher Education (12/10/07); Foster, Andrea L.

Boston College instructor Aaron E. Walsh is leading a multimillion-dollar
project backed by the Federation of American Scientists and the Kauffman
Foundation to develop virtual-reality software that can be used for
educational purposes.

Researchers are working with an international consortium of colleges,
research institutes, and companies to develop standards and best practices
for the virtual-reality platform. The project, called Immersive
Education, will build on Walsh's experience teaching Boston College
students online in virtual spaces.

Immersive Education includes plans to create mini-games and interactive
lessons within virtual spaces, including Second Life, Croquet, and Project
Wonderland.

At a conference announcing Immersive Education, Walsh demonstrated how
virtual worlds can be used to teach students about real-world places,
events, and ideas. During the demonstration, the virtual avatar of a
student, standing in front of a digital jackal, explained that to the
ancient Egyptians the jackal helped transport the dead to the underworld.
Three-dimensional models of archaeological sites and tombs in Egypt,
developed by the Theban Mapping Project, provided a virtual tour of an
otherwise inaccessible site. Meanwhile, Gene Koo, a fellow at the Berkman
Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School, described how
students at Emerson College and Boston residents are using Second Life to
foster civic engagement, and how virtual worlds are being used to design
real-world spaces.
http://chronicle.com/daily/2007/12/925n.htm
(Web Link May Require Paid Subscription)
</quote>
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News Team update for Nov 2007

2007-12-06T06:33:30Z

Hello all,

This is the news team update for November 2007. We had 9 articles posted on
Weekly Squeak in November.

The article was the most hits was:

Seaside - One Click Experience!
http://news.squeak.org/2007/11/10/seaside-one-click-experience/
With 1,360 hits

The Give 1 Get 1 program resulted in a large number of hits from searches on
OLPC.

There were hits on over 130 different articles with 13,057 hits overall
(down from 17.5 K last month).

There are also a number of blogs that regularly reference and comment on our
articles.

If you have ideas for stories please let us know
mailto:news@...

We appreciate all suggestions and comments. I received a number of comments
about editorials. Most were very positive and encouraging and were the
result of some public discussion about the Weekly Squeak on IRC. If you
would like to comment on the content of our articles we are very interested
in your opinion.

The News Team is a great place to volunteer and contribute to your Squeak
Community!

Thanks for Reading and Supporting the Weekly Squeak!

Ron Teitelbaum
Squeak News Team Leader

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/. runs: Intel, Microsoft Despised the XO Laptop

2007-11-25T01:52:42Z

For the details dial

- http://mobile.slashdot.org/mobile/07/11/24/2015229.shtml

Seems to mount competition as if the OLPC where one of the giant
monopolists (with deep pockets) ...

Cheers
Klaus
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RE: Feedback for News Team - Links on Weekly Squeak

2007-11-15T15:05:35Z

On Thu, 2007-11-15 at 17:40 -0500, Ron Teitelbaum wrote:
> As for removing weekly squeak articles from planet, I'm sure there are some
> people that only read our articles from planet.squeak.org. I'm not sure
> that it is confusing enough to want to separate the two.
>
> Thanks,
> Ron Teitelbaum

Yes, I checkout Planet Squeak almost daily but rarely see any reason to
visit Squeak News separately. Also, I think the concept of a blog
aggregator is sufficiently well-known and that a blog (which Squeak News
is fundamentally) linking to it's primary blog aggregator(s) is not at
all unusual.

Ken

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RE: Feedback for News Team - Links on Weekly Squeak

2007-11-15T14:40:52Z

Hi Michael,

Thanks. Having the links there too is not an issue, I just wanted to make
sure we were clear how they get there if we wanted to keep them. So you
would vote to remove them and replace with planet.squeak.org and
www.squeak.org.

Should we also consider any other links like the wiki or tutorials? Maybe
we should give control of those links to the web team, or just replicate the
links that are on www.squeak.org now?

I asked before but I'm not sure we ever got an answer. Should we include a
donate link for SqF?

As for removing weekly squeak articles from planet, I'm sure there are some
people that only read our articles from planet.squeak.org. I'm not sure
that it is confusing enough to want to separate the two.

Thanks,
Ron Teitelbaum

> From: Michael Davies
>
> On Nov 15, 2007 7:43 PM, Ron Teitelbaum <Ron@...> wrote:
> > Hi all,
> >
> > Some blog links were added to the Weekly Squeak.
>
> Hi Ron,
>
> That was me experimenting with the blog-roll function - I'm sorry to
> say I wasn't aware of the function of planet.squeak.org, and so I'd
> started replicating its role! My apologies to all for any confusion
> caused.
>
> > When I asked why the only
> > comment I got was that we have a blog aggregator already
> > http://planet.squeak.org (which I took as a suggestion that these links
> are
> > not necessary)
> >
> > What I'd like to ask everyone is this:
> >
> > 1) Should the Weekly Squeak have external links on it?
> > 1a) If you think we should have links what links should we have?
> > 1b) What should be the criteria, and process for changing the
> list?
>
> Interesting question - one thing I hadn't realised until you asked it
> is that we don't even have a link to the Squeak homepage from
> news.squeak.org at the moment! Adding that seems a good idea.
>
> > 2) Should we replace these links with internal links like
> planet.squeak.org?
> >
>
> It's neater to maintain the list once, so I'm happy that we should
> replace what I've done with a link to planet.squeak.org. That does
> raise one point though: it might be confusing if people clicked on
> such a link to find it contained many articles that they had just read
> on news.squeak.org. Is there any value in treating news.squeak.org and
> planet.squeak.org as separate feeds - ie separating the news from the
> personal articles? That would also make it possible for sites to show
> headlines from both news.squeak and planet.squeak, which would help
> raise the visibility of the latter.
>
> Cheers,
> Michael

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Feedback for News Team - Links on Weekly Squeak

2007-11-15T11:43:29Z

Hi all,

Some blog links were added to the Weekly Squeak. When I asked why the only
comment I got was that we have a blog aggregator already
http://planet.squeak.org (which I took as a suggestion that these links are
not necessary)

What I'd like to ask everyone is this:

1) Should the Weekly Squeak have external links on it?
1a) If you think we should have links what links should we have?
1b) What should be the criteria, and process for changing the list?

Or:

2) Should we replace these links with internal links like planet.squeak.org?

Feel free to respond on or off list.

Thank you for your feedback,

Ron Teitelbaum
Squeak News Team Leader

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Give One. Get One. Now!!

2007-11-12T17:43:06Z

Hi All,

This is just a reminder that you can now help the OLPC project by purchasing
XO laptop's. You will give one to a child in the developing world and get
one for yourself. The Give One. Get One. program is only available for a
limited time so don't delay.

http://news.squeak.org/2007/11/13/give-one-get-one-now/

Or go directly to:

http://www.laptopgiving.org/en/index.php

Check out a cool review:

http://news.squeak.org/2007/10/05/pretty-cool-nytimes-olpc-review/

Thanks,

Ron Teitelbaum

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News Team Report Oct 2007

2007-11-02T12:30:29Z

Hi All,

It's that time again. For the month of Oct we had 17,500 article views of
http://news.squeak.org
(17K is pretty good our average is around 13K)

We had 3 articles with over 1000 hits:
Wait for it! - The Little Book of Semaph
<http://weeklysqueak.wordpress.com/2007/10/26/wait-for-it-the-little-book-of
-semaphores/> 1,944
Seaside 2.8 Released!!
<http://weeklysqueak.wordpress.com/2007/10/28/seaside-28-released/> 1,447
Dan's the Man! Check out Dan Ingalls wo
<http://weeklysqueak.wordpress.com/2007/10/05/dans-the-man-check-out-dan-ing
alls-work-squeak-in-javascript/> 1,068

What's interesting to me is that we had hits on 149 separate articles.
(28 articles with more then 50 hits) (18 articles had only 1 hit)

We had at total of 16 articles published in Oct.

Thank you to everyone that wrote us with ideas about things to publish.
If you have some news let us know at news@...

Special thanks to our contributors:
Giovanni Corriga
Giovanni Giorgi
Michael Davies
Brad Fuller

If you would like to write articles for the weekly squeak please let us
know.
The news team is a great place to volunteer your time.

Happy Squeaking!!

Ron Teitelbaum
Squeak News Team Leader

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RE: Blog Roll

2007-10-30T14:40:40Z

The feed looks ok:

The Weekly Squeak

What's new in the world of Squeak

Nepal's Open Learning Exchange Announces First Learning Activity (It's
Squeak!)
The world watches as the adults fight over power. Who will run the country
of Napal, what will the political solutions bring to the people, what will
it mean to the children? I know I'm not the first to recognize the
incredible beauty of the country, just look at these beautiful pictures
[...]

Seaside 2.8 Released!!
After a beta phase of two months we release the final version of Seaside
2.8. Most bugs fixed during this period were either long standing (already
in 2.7), minor or portability related, Together with the dozens of Seaside
2.8 applications already in production today this gives a pretty good
feeling about this version. A special [...]

Ron

> -----Original Message-----
> From: news-bounces@... [mailto:news-
> bounces@...] On Behalf Of Ken Causey
> Sent: Tuesday, October 30, 2007 4:22 PM
> To: Ron@...
> Cc: 'The mailing list for the Squeak News Team'; simon@...
> Subject: RE: [News] Blog Roll
>
> I have asked Simon Michael about it and he says he will look into it
> when he gets a chance but points out that you may want to check the link
> to the feed on planet.squeak.org for news.squeak.org and make sure there
> is nothing wrong there that you can find since that is the basis for the
> content on planet.squeak.org.
>
> Ken
>
> > -------- Original Message --------
> > Subject: RE: [News] Blog Roll
> > From: "Ron Teitelbaum" <Ron@...>
> > Date: Tue, October 30, 2007 2:29 pm
> > To: "'The mailing list for the Squeak News Team'"
> > <news@...>, "'Ken Causey'" <ken@...>
> >
> >
> > Ken,
> >
> > Any idea why planet.squeak.org is not using my titles? The titles are
> the
> > names of the pictures instead of the names of the articles. It's funny
> too
> > because Nepal 2 is actually the name of the second picture not the
> first.
> > http://planet.squeak.org/
> >
> > Ron
> >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: news-bounces@... [mailto:news-
> > > bounces@...] On Behalf Of Ken Causey
> > > Sent: Tuesday, October 30, 2007 3:14 PM
> > > To: Ron@...; The mailing list for the Squeak News Team
> > > Subject: RE: [News] Blog Roll
> > >
> > > Perhaps I'm missing the point but we already have a blog aggregator at
> > > planet.squeak.org.
> > >
> > > Ken
> > >
> > > > -------- Original Message --------
> > > > Subject: [News] Blog Roll
> > > > From: "Ron Teitelbaum" <Ron@...>
> > > > Date: Tue, October 30, 2007 1:57 pm
> > > > To: "'The mailing list for the Squeak News Team'"
> > > > <news@...>
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > All,
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > How did we decide to include links to other blogs on Weeklysqueak?
> I
> > > > noticed they showed up a little while back.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > If this is something we want to do we should
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > 1) Make them smaller, they are squeezing the articles.
> > > >
> > > > 2) Ask the community if they agree this is a good idea.
> > > >
> > > > 3) Ask for suggestions from the community about who should be
> > > included
> > > > it doesn't seem fair to highlight some community members and not
> others.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > Thoughts, suggestions,
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > Thanks,
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > Ron Teitelbaum
> > > >
> > > > Squeak News Team
> > > Leader<hr>_______________________________________________
> > > > News mailing list
> > > > News@...
> > > > http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/news
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > News mailing list
> > > News@...
> > > http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/news
>
> _______________________________________________
> News mailing list
> News@...
> http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/news

_______________________________________________
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RE: Blog Roll

2007-10-30T14:21:47Z

I have asked Simon Michael about it and he says he will look into it
when he gets a chance but points out that you may want to check the link
to the feed on planet.squeak.org for news.squeak.org and make sure there
is nothing wrong there that you can find since that is the basis for the
content on planet.squeak.org.

Ken

> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: RE: [News] Blog Roll
> From: "Ron Teitelbaum" <Ron@...>
> Date: Tue, October 30, 2007 2:29 pm
> To: "'The mailing list for the Squeak News Team'"
> <news@...>, "'Ken Causey'" <ken@...>
>
>
> Ken,
>
> Any idea why planet.squeak.org is not using my titles? The titles are the
> names of the pictures instead of the names of the articles. It's funny too
> because Nepal 2 is actually the name of the second picture not the first.
> http://planet.squeak.org/
>
> Ron
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: news-bounces@... [mailto:news-
> > bounces@...] On Behalf Of Ken Causey
> > Sent: Tuesday, October 30, 2007 3:14 PM
> > To: Ron@...; The mailing list for the Squeak News Team
> > Subject: RE: [News] Blog Roll
> >
> > Perhaps I'm missing the point but we already have a blog aggregator at
> > planet.squeak.org.
> >
> > Ken
> >
> > > -------- Original Message --------
> > > Subject: [News] Blog Roll
> > > From: "Ron Teitelbaum" <Ron@...>
> > > Date: Tue, October 30, 2007 1:57 pm
> > > To: "'The mailing list for the Squeak News Team'"
> > > <news@...>
> > >
> > >
> > > All,
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > How did we decide to include links to other blogs on Weeklysqueak? I
> > > noticed they showed up a little while back.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > If this is something we want to do we should
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > 1) Make them smaller, they are squeezing the articles.
> > >
> > > 2) Ask the community if they agree this is a good idea.
> > >
> > > 3) Ask for suggestions from the community about who should be
> > included
> > > it doesn't seem fair to highlight some community members and not others.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > Thoughts, suggestions,
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > Thanks,
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > Ron Teitelbaum
> > >
> > > Squeak News Team
> > Leader<hr>_______________________________________________
> > > News mailing list
> > > News@...
> > > http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/news
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > News mailing list
> > News@...
> > http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/news

_______________________________________________
News mailing list
News@...
http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/news

RE: Blog Roll

2007-10-30T13:29:04Z

Ken,

Any idea why planet.squeak.org is not using my titles? The titles are the
names of the pictures instead of the names of the articles. It's funny too
because Nepal 2 is actually the name of the second picture not the first.
http://planet.squeak.org/

Ron

> -----Original Message-----
> From: news-bounces@... [mailto:news-
> bounces@...] On Behalf Of Ken Causey
> Sent: Tuesday, October 30, 2007 3:14 PM
> To: Ron@...; The mailing list for the Squeak News Team
> Subject: RE: [News] Blog Roll
>
> Perhaps I'm missing the point but we already have a blog aggregator at
> planet.squeak.org.
>
> Ken
>
> > -------- Original Message --------
> > Subject: [News] Blog Roll
> > From: "Ron Teitelbaum" <Ron@...>
> > Date: Tue, October 30, 2007 1:57 pm
> > To: "'The mailing list for the Squeak News Team'"
> > <news@...>
> >
> >
> > All,
> >
> >
> >
> > How did we decide to include links to other blogs on Weeklysqueak? I
> > noticed they showed up a little while back.
> >
> >
> >
> > If this is something we want to do we should
> >
> >
> >
> > 1) Make them smaller, they are squeezing the articles.
> >
> > 2) Ask the community if they agree this is a good idea.
> >
> > 3) Ask for suggestions from the community about who should be
> included
> > it doesn't seem fair to highlight some community members and not others.
> >
> >
> >
> > Thoughts, suggestions,
> >
> >
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> >
> >
> > Ron Teitelbaum
> >
> > Squeak News Team
> Leader<hr>_______________________________________________
> > News mailing list
> > News@...
> > http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/news
>
> _______________________________________________
> News mailing list
> News@...
> http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/news

_______________________________________________
News mailing list
News@...
http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/news

RE: Blog Roll

2007-10-30T13:21:36Z

Hi Ken,

I take it that is a vote against. Maybe we should replace our blog links
with a link to planet.squeak.org?

Ron

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RE: Blog Roll

2007-10-30T13:13:55Z

Perhaps I'm missing the point but we already have a blog aggregator at
planet.squeak.org.

Ken

> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: [News] Blog Roll
> From: "Ron Teitelbaum" <Ron@...>
> Date: Tue, October 30, 2007 1:57 pm
> To: "'The mailing list for the Squeak News Team'"
> <news@...>
>
>
> All,
>
>
>
> How did we decide to include links to other blogs on Weeklysqueak? I
> noticed they showed up a little while back.
>
>
>
> If this is something we want to do we should
>
>
>
> 1) Make them smaller, they are squeezing the articles.
>
> 2) Ask the community if they agree this is a good idea.
>
> 3) Ask for suggestions from the community about who should be included
> it doesn't seem fair to highlight some community members and not others.
>
>
>
> Thoughts, suggestions,
>
>
>
> Thanks,
>
>
>
> Ron Teitelbaum
>
> Squeak News Team Leader<hr>_______________________________________________
> News mailing list
> News@...
> http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/news

_______________________________________________
News mailing list
News@...
http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/news

Blog Roll

2007-10-30T12:57:58Z

All,

How did we decide to include links to other blogs on Weeklysqueak? I noticed they showed up a little while back.

If this is something we want to do we should

1) Make them smaller, they are squeezing the articles.

2) Ask the community if they agree this is a good idea.

3) Ask for suggestions from the community about who should be included it doesn’t seem fair to highlight some community members and not others.

Thoughts, suggestions,

Thanks,

Ron Teitelbaum

Squeak News Team Leader

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RE: Newsworthy?

2007-10-30T12:39:49Z

Quite news worthy!! Thanks for letting me know about it.
http://news.squeak.org/2007/10/30/nepals-open-learning-exchange-announces-fi
rst-learning-activity-its-squeak/

Hope you like it, comments welcome!

Ron

> -----Original Message-----
> From: news-bounces@... [mailto:news-
> bounces@...] On Behalf Of Bert Freudenberg
> Sent: Tuesday, October 30, 2007 12:02 PM
> To: The mailing list for the Squeak News Team
> Subject: [News] Newsworthy?
>
> http://nepal.ole.org/home/?q=node/73
>
> - Bert -
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> News mailing list
> News@...
> http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/news

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Newsworthy?

2007-10-30T10:01:49Z

http://nepal.ole.org/home/?q=node/73

- Bert -

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Looking for a second mailing list admin

2007-09-14T04:54:59Z

Hi all,

since in the coming months I'll be pretty busy, maybe it would be better
to add a new admin for this mailing list. Is there anyone who wants to
help me?

Ciao,

Giovanni

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[Draft Article] Optimizing Contexts

2007-07-11T02:57:50Z

Cross-posted to:
strongtalk-general@...
vm-dev@...
exupery@...
news@...
comp.lang.smalltalk

Hello lists. This is a draft of an article I am writing for an upcoming
series at the Weekly Squeak. It is about optimizing context creation, I
would like comments on its technical correctness, as well as suggestions
for related content I should include. I would especially like to know if
this article covers the way this is handled in systems I did not
specifically research, such as Strongtalk, and Exupery, and
non-smalltalk systems like Common Lisp, Erlang, Haskell, and OCaml,
since this topic is not really specific to object-oriented systems.

This will not be the first article of the series; however, the first two
paragraphs are the preliminary series introduction. I put them in so
that you can get an idea of what I am writing. Sections enclosed in 
... tags are parts I am especially unsure of; I would appreciate
comments (I used i tags, because my editor, vim, highlights the enclosed
text when in HTML mode).

Look forward to this appearing in the Weekly Squeak:

http://news.squeak.org/

Thank you for your help, and enjoy the article!

=== Speeding Up Smalltalk Series, part 42: Context Optimizations ===

Ever since object-oriented systems became popular, they have had the
image of being very easy to program, but very slow in terms of execution
speed. This image and reality has plagued every popular object-oriented
system, starting with Smalltalk in the 80's and continuing on to Java
and Ruby today. However, this does not have to be the case. Early-bound
languages have gotten much faster thanks to lots of research on
compilers and computer architecture. Similarly, much research has been
done on making late-bound object-oriented systems fast, both with
software and with hardware. This research has not seen as much exposure
as processor research, and so is probably less familiar to you. This
series, "Speeding Up Smalltalk" attempts to summarize a lot of that
research and present it for your enjoyment.

Computation in Smalltalk and Self is done by sending messages to
objects. This seemingly simple operation of sending a message is done so
often and is so flexible that it is always the execution
bottleneck in any implementation of Smalltalk or similar object-oriented
system. Why is that?

---- Description of Context Objects ----

Every time a message is sent, four things happen:
- A search is done through the message receiver for a method that has
been sent. This was the topic of the previous article, and will not be
discussed here.
- A context object is allocated on the heap.
- The context object is initialized and filled with:
- local objects, including:
- pointers to the message arguments
- pointers for each local variable
- pointers for temporary storage needed for intermediate results
- A way to reference variables defined in other scopes. This is a
property blocks have, but methods don't
- In Smalltalk, by a pointer to the "home context"
- In Self, by delegate slots to the enclosing context(s)
- A return address at which to resume execution
- Squeak does not need this, since every context has it's own PC, so
when returning, the PC of the returned-to context is already in
the right place. This is equivalent to a return address, since a
child's return address is the parents PC.
- A return context that will become current upon return
- The newly-created context is made the "current" context for this
thread/process

In Squeak, MethodContexts and BlockContexts are subclasses of
ContextPart. ContextPart has three instance variables:
- sender: The context that sent the message being executed. This context
will become current when the current context returns
- pc: A pointer to the currently executing instruction
- stackp: The pointer to the execution stack. The smalltalk virtual
machine is a stack processor. local variables are stored in the
indexed fields of the context. stackp keeps track of which OOP is at
the top of the stack. For MethodContexts:

MethodContext extends it with 3 instance variables, and a variable-sized
area for holding the temporaries:
- method: the CompiledMethod holding the code being executed
- receiverMap: Something to do with the names of the variables. Not
really sure 
- receiver: a pointer to "self", the receiver of the message.

---- Squeak optimization: Static Contexts ----

In Squeak, BlockContexts are partial closures (sometimes called static
blocks/closures [3]). Rather than hold their own code and environment,
BlockContexts piggyback off of another context/code pair. Home is the
environment that the block piggybacks off of. This usually works, but
there are some cases where this scheme will not work:
- like what? Why not? I don't understand why this doesn't always
work. Something to do with re-entrancy or circular references. Not
sure why either is a problem. 

For BlockContexts:
- nargs: the number of arguments that the block must be called with.
- startpc: The index into <code>self home method</code> where the code
for the block starts.
- home: the home environment

Squeak's NewCompiler has a different representation of blocks. These are
full closures, storing their own code and environment. They are
sometimes called dynamic closures to distinguish them from the above
"static closures" [3]. They contain:
- method: The code of the block (CompiledMethod2)
- environment: Captured temps (ClosureEnvironment)

---- Squeak optimization: Context Recycling ----

To avoid having to create a new MethodContext on every message send,
Squeak keeps a pool of pre-allocated MethodContexts, and simply fills
one up when a new one is needed. To support this optimization,
MethodContexts are only created with two sizes, rather than any size
that they could support. The small size has room for a few 
temporaries, and the large size has room for a bunch [4]

---- VisualWorks optimization: Context Caches ----

The most natural way to store contexts is as a linked list of objects,
but that does not map well to the hardware of many processors. Many
processors (including all the Intel varieties) have several 
built-in instructions to mechanize the creation of stack frames, which
are similar to context objects, but have several important differences.
VisualWorks uses these native stack frames for most operations, meaning
that context creation is identical to a C function send in many cases.
Thus, the hardware stack acts as a stand-in for the context objects;
this optimization is called a context cache.

However, stack frames cannot handle context responsibilities beyond a
single call and return; when more is needed, a context object must be
allocated on the heap. The context object can either be a context in
it's own right (a stable context), or act as a proxy to the hardware
stack frame (hybrid context). There are several complications to this
dual scheme; curious readers should refer to [5].

VW and Squeak does not use a stack of context frames; instead it uses a
linked list of real context objects. This is easier, but perhaps slower.
To save on allocation costs, contexts are cached and recycled for
various method invocations.

 Not sure where to incorporate this 

There are three types of blocks:
- open/clean blocks (pure function with no closure)
- copying blocks
- full blocks

---- Or you can cheat... ----

The most popular object-oriented languages (C++, Java) chose to dump the
flexibility of blocks in exchange for runtime speed. These languages use
a native stack frame without providing the escape mechanism of a context
cache, so that blocks and other context behavior that does not follow
stack principles is not supported. This is a tradeoff that eliminates a
good deal of flexibility, and so will not be explored further.

---- Final words ----

Inlining solves many of the same problems as a Context cache does. If
the method body is inlined into the caller, no new context need be
created. However, inlining solves many more problems than just context
elimination; I will dedicate an entire article to it.

---- References ----

- context recycling may be discussed in tims nublue book:
http://www.rowledge.org/tim/squeak/OE-Tour.html

- context caches are discussed in section 5.2.3 of
http://www.kampjes.demon.co.uk/articles/exuperyDesign.pdf

[3] add reference to squeak mailing list or Ian's something to
discuss the difference between static and dynamic closures 

[4] Squeak Class comments of <code>InstructionStream</code>,
<code>ContextPart</code>, <code> MethodContext</code>. and
<code>BlockContext</code>.

[5]: Context Management in VisualWorks 5i:
http://wiki.cs.uiuc.edu/VisualWorks/DOWNLOAD/papers/oopsla99-contexts.pdf

--
Matthew Fulmer -- http://mtfulmer.wordpress.com/
Help improve Squeak Documentation: http://wiki.squeak.org/squeak/808
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Re: News Team Monthly Report for June 2007

2007-07-03T16:38:20Z

Il giorno mar, 03/07/2007 alle 15.03 -0700, Blake ha scritto:
> > We were listed in the list of top blog posts on wordpress a few times.
> > We really could use some new members. If you have an interest in writing
> > articles for weeklysqueak please contact me.
>
> Mailing back to the list in general to ask: What sort of articles? Do you
> have some broad, general guidelines for material you'd like to see? The
> two you mentioned in your e-mail seem to be an interview and a...well,
> sort of another interview(s).

Blake, what kind of articles are you interested in?

Giovanni

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Beginner's guide to developing in Squeak

2007-07-01T16:18:29Z

Steve Wessels has published an excellent and comprehensive beginner's
guide to development in Squeak, using the example of a simple game to
give advice on use of projects, testing, use of morphs, tracking down
bugs, and managing and publishing your source code.

See it here: http://squeak.preeminent.org/tut2007/html/index.html

Cheers,
Michael
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