Really useful (and even pretty amazing) developer tools in the pipeline

Travis and Michael never fail to show interesting and useful things that can enhance development capabilities for Cincom Smalltalk. 

Please check out this video of a way to add dynamic updates to an inspector, and this video walkthrough of SearchLight II (called SearchLightTools in the repository).  Great stuff!

You can also see these from James blog (if you haven't already :-) )

Arden

You may remember an earlier post I did that showed some scripts to auto-build images.

I use these scripts for easily upgrading to new versions of VisualWorks and automatically building my base set of images, without having to do it manually.

In the latest beta build of VisualWorks 7.6 (Feb08.1), a change is necessary. 

If you import your repositories with:

stream := 'repositories.xml' asFilename readStream.

Store.RepositoryManager importRepositoriesFromXmlOn: stream.

You will need to change this to: 

stream := 'repositories.xml' asFilename readStream.

Store.RepositoryManager importRepositoriesFromStream: stream.

.Happy scripting!

ObjectStudio 8 NC is now available for download !

What does ObjectStudio offer?

If you are a VisualWorks user, you will be right at home using the same RB browser, and ObjectStudio offers native widgets, and easier OCX/ActiveX integration, for starters.

If you are an ObjectStudio 7.x user, ObjectStudio 8 offers the extensive communication and security protocol libraries that VisualWorks users enjoy, and a whole lot more.

Cincom Smalltalk VisualWorks 7.6nov07.1 is available to VWDev subscribers.

This release has many new things, most notably the new RB browser, which has many under-the-cover changes, and some nice visible changes too.

Most of the development tools I blogged about a while back still work, with the exception of HyperRBCodeHighlighting which should get fixed soon. Most of the other ones I checked, like AutoComplete, RBCodeHighlighting, ProgrammingExtensions & Searchlight still work fine. Let us know if a favorite tool has an issue, and if you are a contributed contributor, please check and tweak as necessary. Michael has a mention of this release here.

Quotes from Dave Thomas (aka Smalltalk Dave, Big Dave) 

On James Robertson's blog there is a great interview with Dave Thomas.

If you don't know Dave Thomas, Dave was very active in the Smalltalk community, founding OTI, which produced products like Envy, VisualAge Smalltalk, and other Smalltalk products and implementations. He was also involved in the creation of Eclipse.

To use a cliché, Dave has not only been around the block, but helped build it too. I always seem to learn something interesting or new, in interviews or talks by Dave. Worth listening to.

Here are a few quotes I gleaned from the interview, in a discussion about envy.

"A strong specific solution that works, is better than a general solution that doesn't"

"Once you get used to something that woks, it's hard to get out, even if it should be gotten out"

(This is not meant to be a slight on Envy, just a comment on the persistence of something that solves a problem well).

-Arden

I dont often mention utility software, but I recently came across one that deserves mention.

The utility is called "Folder Guide", it runs on Windows platforms, and it is small, simple and useful.

What does it do? It simply lets you open or move to your favorite or frequently visited folders, just by right clicking on the desktop, or in a folder. Add a directory to the guide just by right clicking on it. Small and simple, less is more.

- Arden

Cincom Smalltalk Environment Enhancements II 

 Build Scripts

I created four different build scripts that will automatically create development images.  

You can download the build scripts here.

The enhancements added are based primarily on what is popular in this survey.  You can easily add subtract, mix & match what is included in the script files to customize one for yourself if desired, or try out what is provided.

The scripts will first load what they can locally, then they will connect to the Cincom repository as "guest" and load what is needed from there, then save and quit.

Two things; first these files are written for a Windows user, so you may have to make some changes for other environments.  Second, my files are placed in a "build" directory under the C:\Program Files\Cincom directory, and the batch files reflect the relative locations.

The build scripts fork off the save at the end.  I discovered this was needed when I originally moved and erased the script file from the image directory.  When the images started, they were looking for the erased file.  The fork allows the script to end, then unwind and close the script file, before saving and quitting.

 You may also wish to load things from local or additional Store repositories.  Once you have the multiple store logins in your image, go to the Store balloon icon in the bottom right of your launcher, right click and choose "Export Repositories" and save it as repositories.xml.  You can then easily recreate the logins in your image with the following code in your build script:

 stream := 'repositories.xml' asFilename readStream.

Store.RepositoryManager importRepositoriesFromXmlOn: stream.

 That's it!

This will allow you to automate connecting to multiple repositories and loading from each.

You can find and login to a repository like this:

profile := Store.RepositoryManager repositories

            detect: [:each | 'CincomPublicRepository' = each name]            

            ifNone: [nil].

 profile ifNil: [^self].

 Store.DbRegistry connectTo: profile.

Cincom Smalltalk Environment Enhancements survey

I surveyed Cincom Smalltalk engineering to see what add-ins and enhancements were popular or well regarded .

Below is the results summary of the environment enhancements survey sent to our engineers.

Now the awards :-)

The most frequently used enhancements:

ProgrammingExtensions adds inspect widget and inspect window middle click menu items

RBCodeHighlighting It enhances code readability immensely

AutoComplete Hit tab and see possible completions for what you're typing.

NewPrerequisitesEngine Because it works.

StoreForGlorpVWUI Store extensions, significantly faster for loading and publishing

Most often suggested for integrating into base environment:

RBCodeHighlighting

Essential

Integrate, but with a better default color scheme

- would need ability to turn off. Most like it a lot, but at least one person hates it.

NewPrerequisitesEngine

Because it works."

AutoComplete

Cleanup and incorporate into base

Testing

In the testing area, not much reason was given other than Testing which I guess is mostly self explanatory (that or hard to get excited about?) . Popular enhancements are:

SUnit

SUnitToo

SUnitTools

RBSunitExtensions

. These were the most popular. Others mentioned

SUnitUI

SUnitVM

SUnitExtensions

The one I'm surprised didn't get mentioned more:

Searchlight fast, effective, consolidated and cool way to find things

. It may be because this is relatively new, but I think it is very useful

One that is useful for clear, easy arithmetic on collections

NumericalCollection

I added this type of functionally to work I had done in the past (very expressive) , but adopted this package because it implements it right. It does all the correct double dispatching. Very nice.

Some interesting ones that might be very useful

SymbolValue

Out

ClassCloning

.. more tomorrow on build scripts to automate the building of these development images.

What are your favorites? Write me at athomas@cincom.com

Michael Lucas Smith, one of our engineers, asked me to check out one of the new tools he has been experimenting with. I had heard good early reports from Travis Griggs who is our Tools lead and has a good eye for useful and well designed things.

The tool is called SmallSpotlight, and is available on the Cincom Public Repository. It is inspired by Spotlight on the Mac (I have to claim complete ignorance here - I have never owned a Mac, something I hope to remedy in the near future).

All I can say is “WOW!” This is such a simple and powerful tool! It is quick, simple and effective, quickly finding things I need and refocusing a browser that is a single click away. It is also readily available in the launcher, the browser (RB) and as a standalone tool. It will not solve ALL the search needs I have ever had, but it gets a majority of them done quickly and elegantly.

It will be added to my standard development image.  Definitely an example of "Less is More".

I highly recommend you check this tool out.

Another good example of extending conditionals are Andres Valloud's ComplexConditions package (pkg available in the Cincom public repository). You can see ComplexConditions covered in James Robertson's screencasts.

Say I have five expressions and want to do something if they are all true.

I might write:

((((([expression a) and:[expression b]) and:[expression c]) and:[expression d]) and:[expression e]) ifTrue:[self doSomething].

If the conditions were short like this example, but if they were longer, I might write for clarity:

answerA := expression a.

answerB := expression b.

answerC := expression c.

answerD := expression d.

answerE := expression e.

answerA & answerB & answerC & answerD & answerE ifTrue:[self doSomething].

(Uglier but more efficient if I do this:)

((((answerA and:[ answerB]) and:[ answerC ])and:[ answerD ])and:[ answerE ])

ifTrue:[self doSomething].

But what if we wanted to do something if they were all true, something if only some were true, and something else if none were true? Andres addressed this problem with an elegant solution.

[conditionA], [conditionB], [conditionC]

ifAllTrue: [such]
ifAnyTrue: [such]
otherwise: [such]

What the commas sent to the blocks do is create a new kind of object, aComplexCondition object, that can respond to a whole host of pragmatic messages such as (shown here ) ifAllTrue: ifAnyTrue: otherwise: .

I like this because Smalltalk is all about keeping things as simple and clear as possible.

Some other interesting protocol of ComplexCondition:

If I want

If all my conditions = 5, return true

[5] , [3+2] ifAllEvaluateTo: 5 answer: true

there are lots of ifAll and ifAny variations.

There is also protocol to check for nil (the singleton of UndefinedObject)

allDefined

ifAllDefined: aBlock

anyDefined

ifAnyDefined: aBlock

ifAllDefined: aBlock otherwise: otherwiseBlock

etc

It is also neat that you can group and combine complex conditionals with another set of messages that work for ComplexCondition objects like and:/or: work for booleans.

[conditionA], [conditionB], [conditionC] andAnyOf: [conditionD], [conditionE], [conditionF]

[conditionA], [conditionB], [conditionC] orAllOf:: [conditionD], [conditionE], [conditionF]

Reference:

http://blogten.blogspot.com/2005/02/complexconditions.html

In a consulting gig a while back, I was fortunate to be able to talk regularly with someone who was involved with Smalltalk from the beginning; Dianna Merry Shapiro, and I am glad to call her “friend”.  I found it interesting to hear some stories and perspectives, from the inside, back at the legendary Xerox PARC.

One story I found interesting, was one about the MVC framework (Model View Controller).  MVC is one of those basic frameworks that you usually learn along with Smalltalk, when you first cut your teeth on using ST.  What I learned was that MVC was added nearer the end of the decade of Smalltalk development (after Alan Kay had left iirc), and its addition was even controversial.

 
Smalltalk without MVC! Heresy!!! – was my admittedly knee-jerk initial thought.  But then I thought about it some more.  So, objects would be responsible for displaying themselves – a simple and direct approach.  The general pitch for MVC was having a model that you could display as a bar chart, or as a pie chart depending on the view that was used.  This is an attractive form of separation of concerns, modularity, and reuse.  But maybe there was some “less is more” thinking in another camp.  If an object needed to display itself in multiple ways, maybe it would simply have subclasses that could do this.  I find this an intriguing “what-if”.

 
Don’t get me wrong – I’m not disparaging MVC; it is a framework that is widely used and there are many derivatives of it out there – it is an attractive idea.  But I am wondering how the less-is-more approach would have worked out.  Would it have been quicker for folks to “spin-up” using Smalltalk with this simpler approach?   Would it be better/simpler/faster to use in some circumstances?

 
Comments welcome!

What else about colors?

Some tips on color use from the book  “Universal Principles of Design”

• Don’t use too many colors
• Use color combinations based on the color wheel, like the adjacent, complimentary, triadic color schemes.
• Saturation
• Saturated colors demand attention
• Desaturated colors are perceived as professional
• Dark desaturated colors are perceived as serious and professional
• Color symbolism
• Is cultural and not universal

http://www.amazon.com/Universal-Principles-Design-Usability-Perception/dp/1592530079/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-6450404-1965458?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1182867624&sr=1-1