joe@erix.UUCP (Joe Armstrong) (06/07/85)
I am a newcomer to Smalltalk and would like to get this newgroup rolling
it never seems to have much in it: so a few open questions:
1/ How many Smalltalkers are there out there
2/ What's happened to the 'missing' book
3/ Where can I find example applications programs
4/ A programming question
5/ A comment
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1/ How many are there of us?
How many people who actively work with Smalltalk-80 has this message reached?
Please reply if you actively work with Smalltalk-80 at least 50% of your time,
and I don't mean little smalltalk, methods or whatever?
What machine do you use?
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2/ Wheres the book?
The "Smalltalk-80 Creating a User Interface and Graphical Applications" Book -
has anybody any idea when this book is to be published (and what colour
it will be , the gold book? the black book?)
Does this newsgroup get forwarded to Xerox?
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3/ Application programs
The Xerox virtual image contains all the tools I want to build my application
program (say). Are there any documented application programs available,
expert systems, compilers for different langages (say functional languages),
data base quiery systems, prolog type interpretors, iconic programming
languages etc. If so where are they pulished and how can I get hold of them?
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4/ A programming problem (Simple for Gurus)
I want to make a Button (not the same as the exiting Button Class)
that is initialised by say the message:
Button initialiseWithText:'foo' receiver:bar message:23
What this should do is create a little box size 100@100 at a location
specified by the user and write the text 'foo' in the middle of the box.
This little box should have the properties that it is permanent, and
moveable etc. i.e. I can use standard blue button options, (move, frame,
collapse , etc.)
When I select the box and click the red button I want the message
bar message:23
to be sent from the Button to bar (note bar, and 23 were set up in my
initial initialiseWithText:receiver:message message).
If I close the box with a blue button close it should permanently die.
I have the feeling that this problem can be simply solved using the existing
smalltalk classes, but don't see how. I also want a mimimun solution using
existing classes as much as possible!
If and when I get any helpful proposals I'll try them hack them etc and
repost in FileOut format.
The red and blue books only go as far as forms in any detail. Views and
controllers are only lightly touched.
Presumably my problem requires building a "Model View Controller" whatever
that is.
Any enlightenments as to exactly what kind of animals standardSystemViews and
scheduledSystemViews etc. are would be welcomed.
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5/ I like Smalltalk it's fun !
Joe Armstrong
Newsgroups: net.lang.st80hmm@unido.UUCP (06/11/85)
Answer to question #1: I'm working (playing) with a port of Berkeley Smalltalk (BS 2) done here at the University of Dortmund by Georg Heeg (georg@unido). It runs on a Cadmus 9230 with System V (sort of), 2 M real & 8 M virtual memory and Cadmus bitmap display (has it's own 68000 on-board, resolution is 1024x800). I don't have experience with any other Smalltalk-80 system and I can't compare it against them. But the benchmarks give a value of 18 % Dorado, so it's about 30 % faster than the Sun. You can obtain further information from Georg Heeg if you're interested in the baby. And here's my own question (which overlaps with the original q's #3 & #4): Where's the right place to exchange Smalltalk-80 programs ? I think net.sources is fine for C programs and shell scripts, but Smalltalk-80 is not too widely used (yet). Should there be a newsgroup net.sources.st80, or should we post sources in net.lang.st80 ? We have done some nice bits (added 'newlabel' to the BlueButtonMenu to change the label of a workspace; modified the clock to run backwards etc.), and we want to do some serious work now. Georg is doing an interface to C-Prolog (we think implementing prolog in Smalltalk is too much overhead). I'm thinking of writing a nice mail- and maybe news(notes)-interface. We want to share programs with others and need a place for it. Please tell us what you're doing, and let's share our experiences. Hans-Martin Mosner Universitaet Dortmund (Germany) ihnp4!hpfcla!hpbbn!unido!hmm seismo!mcvax!unido!hmm