FTPlets?
Back in January, I challenged the Seaside community to implement a dynamic FTP server. The idea isn't to get Squeak to serve out the filesystem, but to have a way to use the FTP protocol as an interface to any data you want, in the same way that dynamic web servers let you use HTTP for applications far beyond serving static HTML files. Well, Ian Prince wrote a couple of weeks ago that he and Lukas Renggli had started to tackle it at Camp Smalltalk in Brussels. Since then, Lukas has been hacking away, and he just let me know that he had support for passive clients done - which means that, among others, the Mac OS X Finder now works. So here's a shot of a Finder window browsing the class hierarchy of my Squeak image:
Each method is represented as a separate text file, and if you edit and save one, it'll be immediately recompiled and the image updated. Ever wanted to use emacs to edit your Squeak code? Here's your chance.
But browsing Smalltalk method source is just the beginning. Any number of databases and domain models could be usefully exposed as a hierarchical file system. Lukas says he's already working on an FTP view for SmallWiki2, turning BBEdit into a dedicated wiki editor. What other web apps could benefit from an FTP dimension?
Very cool stuff.
Comments
[Vincent Foley] September 5, 2005 17:49:31.880
Wow, that is so cool
Yep, cool
[Sean M] September 5, 2005 19:34:26.876
Yep, that is really cool.
Was it done as an extension to swazoo, or something else?
Challenge link broken
[François] September 5, 2005 23:33:25.398
The actual link's URL is http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/pipermail/seaside/2005-January/004254.html
[] September 6, 2005 13:33:09.459
Here's to Avi et al continuing to think of new and innovative ways to use technology, especially existing protocols. Editing Smalltalk w/ Emacs - I think I just wet myself a bit from excitement.
Cool.
[Travis Griggs] September 6, 2005 14:56:14.976
Very cool. At CST Colorado, I remember Claus hooking an image into UserFS under Linux. It was the coolest thing. You could vi methods, do greps, rm methods. You name it. This looks very similiar. And in some ways cooler because it is more general (i.e. no such thing as UserFS under Windows).
Smalltalk and Emacs
[Patrick Logan] September 7, 2005 0:12:57.743
"Editing Smalltalk w/ Emacs - I think I just wet myself a bit from excitement." I can recommend it. I programmed Gemstone Smalltalk (a server-based Smalltalk) for years using Emacs with no "client" Smalltalk in front of it. Gemstone has a command-line debugger and so hooking this up to Emacs I was able to run the debugger through a buffer showing the execution point. http://www.gemstone.com/products/smalltalk/
this is so cool
[Ron] September 8, 2005 13:21:06.599
This is so cool. Thank you for posting this. So cool....
Did you know about FUSE?
[Sascha] September 9, 2005 3:47:21.790
"With FUSE it is possible to implement a fully functional filesystem in a userspace program."
http://fuse.sourceforge.net/