Squeak People diary for FrankShearar

16 Jan 2005

Sun, 16 Jan 2005 21:40:32 -0700

I'm having lots of fun with my Image Map Editor (http://kilana.unibe.ch:8888/ImageMap).

It's the first time I've got to grips with Morphic (as I think I said in a previous diary entry that was one of the two main points).

And finally I'm at a stage where I can actually do something useful. I've been able to add entries and such for a while now, but now it's all starting to look like a nearly-finished product.

The biggest bug I currently have is that once you finish adding an entry, you get a FillInTheBlankMorph to enter the target to which the region points. All well and good. But if you click "Accept" the PasteUpMorph (ultimate parent of all the widgets other than the SystemWindow itself) catches the click and sends #clicked to the ImageMapEditor. This means that your first click disappears, and only the second click accepts the FITBM.

Other than that, if you drag around the FITBM the PasteUpMorph (with #behaveLikeHolder: true) sucks in the FITBM. Not what I wanted. I may be able to fix that by adding the image to the PUM with a Layout, though.

10 Jan 2005

Mon, 10 Jan 2005 10:47:19 -0700

It's sure been a while since I last posted anything here.

I've put my SipStack on the backburner a bit - I'm writing a SIP stack at work (in Delphi) and, well, writing two SIP stacks at a time is not really lots of fun. I originally started the project to get to grips with Smalltalk and from that perspective the project's already a success. Still, there're lots of things I'd like to do with SIP in a Squeak environment, so I'll carry on working on it when I can muster the energy.

I've also started an NCSA image map editor because (a) I need one and (b) it'll give me a chance to get to grips with Morphic. So far Morphic astounds me with its sheer size - I mean, the only thing missing is the kitchen sink! I've also discovered a very neat way of learning about Morphic without losing one's mind - use Monticello as an example. Once I figured out how and why they do things (especially in MCTool), the Monticello code just seems so neat. So neat, in fact, that I've "borrowed" quite a bit from MCTool. *cough*

18 Jul 2004

Sun, 18 Jul 2004 02:49:29 -0700

So I've not written a diary entry for a while. Too much work, too much work.

I installed Doug Way's WhiskerBrowser tonight, and I must day, it impressed me. I'll work it a bit harder hopefully tomorrow, and I don't think I'll never use a Browser/RefactoringBrowser again, but certainly it looks like it'll cut down on the 5-browsers-open-at-a-time problem.

Oh, and I realised that it helps _telling_ people when you make a new release for a package I maintain. Hm, yes, so if you didn't read it on the squeak-dev list, BFAV 2.11 has launched.

11 Jun 2004

Fri, 11 Jun 2004 15:26:49 -0700

I've just made my first ever release as a package maintainer. BFAV 2.10 has just shipped. I feel a bit of trepidation to be honest. What if I've made a mistake? What if something breaks terribly? Ooh, the chills!

If something does go wrong I'll just have to fix it, I guess :) It's all part of growing up & stuff.

On another note, I've been implementing a SIP stack in both Delphi (at work) and Squeak (at home & during lunch break). I've found it quite hard to keep the two separate - class structures leak from my Delphi implementation (on which I've worked much longer) to the Squeak implementation, and idioms have leaked from the Squeak one to the Delphi one. Most of the time the idioms work quite well. Since Delphi's a weakly, manifestly typed language without garbage collection, I find I have to fight the language much more than I do with Squeak. I'm just glad I don't have to write in Java! Still I often have to vent my spleen at Delphi and Java. I really do need to figure out how to get paid to write in Squeak!

2 Apr 2004

Fri, 02 Apr 2004 16:18:55 -0700

Well, I dove into the deep, dark waters of SqueakSource and Monticello last night.

In retrospect it wasn't a great idea to register my SIP stack (now officially known as SipStack) on April 1st, but anyway. I'll just have to bear the expected ribbing with equanimity!

Anyway, it was fairly easy to figure out how to use Monticello's UI. Once I'd read what documentation I could find, and read all the popup help. I wouldn't mind seeing a tutorial on basic Monticello operations though!

And then today I made my first mistake, I think. I had Network-SIP.1.mcz in SqueakSource, downloaded it, and made some changes. Not really looking where I was clicking, I hit "save" in the Repository browser, not the Monticello Browser . As a result I think I changed Network-SIP.1.mcz, not Network-SIP.2.mcz as I thought I was about to. No great train smash as I had just added class comments, but something for me to bear in mind in the future.

I would like to see something like a diff of class comments in the Snapshot Browser though. If that's feasible.

17 Mar 2004

Wed, 17 Mar 2004 14:47:36 -0700

Well, it's been ages and ages since I last mumbled into my soup^Wdiary. In that time I've managed to volunteer maintainership for the BFAV2, only one of the most important community tools we have. Whee!

I must confess, the responsibility weighed heavily for a while after bkv and KenCausey said (to paraphrase) "Great! Thanks for volunteering! You're a maintainer now!" and I suddenly thought "Ulp!".

It doesn't seem so bad now. It's an interesting application, and it's teaching me tonnes of Smalltalk stuff, and all I really need to do (is this the secret all maintainers cherish?) is let other, more skilled people submit fixes and just make sure those fixes get into BFAV! Besides, it's not like I'm sole maintainer - Tom Koenig's the other new co-maintainer, and bkv and KenCausey are still around to help out should Awful Things(tm) happen.

9 Jan 2004

Fri, 09 Jan 2004 01:27:16 -0700

Valuable Lesson in Life #69954: When you decide that your .image & .changes filename is ugly, and you move the files, try not to overwrite your image with your changes file. If you're going to do that, at least make sure you regularly back up your project somewhere safe.

I've just spent the last 3 evenings reconstructing my SIP stack from an 18M changes file, more or less by hand. I'm sure there must have been an easier way to get my work out of the changes file, but hey, I'm a newbie after all.

After that mission though, I at least have a reasonably good idea of what a changes file is all about, and I'm even more impressed with Squeak than I was before this *cough* mishap. Which was already a hell of a lot. As an added bonus, I got rid of a minor dependency I was unaware of - I'd used String>>trimBlanks, which isn't in the stock image (but String>>withBlanksTrimmed is). So the story has a happy ending: my SIP stack is safe and sound once more, and it's even in (slightly) better shape than before the accident.

And now it's time to retire for the evening, and read some more of Neal Stephenson's truly excellent "Cryptonomicon".

23 Dec 2003

Tue, 23 Dec 2003 16:08:52 -0700

Second day of sick leave. Don't you just hate being sick?

Anyhow, I've taken the opportunity of getting some work done on my SIP stack. I've almost finished the transaction layer, which represents a nice chunk of the project.

And speaking of SIP stacks, I was thinking of calling this baby "Squip" - it's short, it's not too ugly, and it fits the canonical Squeak naming habit. Oh well, time enough to worry about that - there's still far too much to do before this sucker goes on SqueakMap.

On an aside, because of the BrowseUnit/TestBrowser discussion on the squeak-dev list, I've been very conscious of how I use BrowseUnit/TestBrowser. I've found myself using BrowseUnit less and less. Except that old slint button! I'm using BrowseUnit less because I don't like where it puts tests, and there's no penalty to simply using TestBrowser's Test Category. Oh, and I (most of the time) prefer the way TestBrowser dumps you in the middle of the running test at the point where the assertion failed. Every now and then, though, I find BrowseUnit's behaviour to be preferable, and then I'm glad I have both installed.

OK, enough waffle. Time for more programming.

1 Dec 2003

Mon, 01 Dec 2003 08:15:45 -0700

Well, we're up before the dawn today to see if I can get in to work sometime before dawn. If there aren't leaves on the tracks of the Tube system here in Sunny London(tm), the Tube drivers are striking or instituting a go-slow. I hope that this mess gets resolved quickly.

On a happier note, I feel like I've actually managed to get some work done on my SIP stack. Just message parsing at the moment, and digging around the bowels of the image looking for appropriate idioms to appropriate. Slowly but surely I'm starting to move in and make myself comfortable in the language.

And I became a BrowseUnit convert last night, too!