sdl@lyra.mitre.org (Steven D. Litvinchouk) (02/09/90)
I am writing a paper on Smalltalk-80, and would appreciate hearing about any references in the published literature dealing with potential future changes/enhancements for both the language and its environment. These can be anything from "official" ParcPlace plans to rank speculation. For example, does anyone know what the much-awaited color imaging model in Smalltalk will be like? Also, are there any plans to provide some kind of "Interface Builder" to facilitate developing user interfaces without so much MVC hacking? Thanx in advance! Steven Litvintchouk MITRE Corporation Burlington Road Bedford, MA 01730 (617)271-7753 ARPA: sdl@mbunix.mitre.org UUCP: ...{att,decvax,genrad,ll-xn,philabs,utzoo}!linus!sdl "Where does he get those wonderful toys?" -- J. Nicholson -- Steven Litvintchouk MITRE Corporation Burlington Road Bedford, MA 01730 (617)271-7753 ARPA: sdl@mbunix.mitre.org UUCP: ...{att,decvax,genrad,ll-xn,philabs,utzoo}!linus!sdl "Where does he get those wonderful toys?" -- J. Nicholson
jans@tekgvs.LABS.TEK.COM (Jan Steinman) (02/10/90)
<For example, does anyone know what the much-awaited color imaging model in Smalltalk will be like? Also, are there any plans to provide some kind of "Interface Builder" to facilitate developing user interfaces without so much MVC hacking?> What do you mean, "much awaited"? A solid color model has been available in Tek Smalltalk since 1986! Over two person-years went into Tek Color Smalltalk, with much of that spent on building a layered architecture. Personally, I'd love to see the portable part become a standard, but there's NIH to deal with. There was a paper, but it's not in OOPSLA '86, '87, or '89. (I don't have '88 handy, and it might be in JOOP. Rebecca Wirfs-Brock, Mike Miller, and Roxanne Rochat were the authors.) Also available with Tek Smalltalk is Glazier, a user interface builder. I've played with it a bit -- It's not as spiffy as NeXT's IB, but hey, it comes with source! See OOPSLA '87 proceedings: "Painless Panes for Smalltalk Windows" by Jim Alexander. Jan Steinman - N7JDB Tektronix Electronic Systems Laboratory Box 500, MS 50-370, Beaverton, OR 97077 (w)503/627-5881 (h)503/657-7703
lauren@reed.UUCP (Lauren Wiener) (02/10/90)
In article <6836@tekgvs.LABS.TEK.COM>, jans@tekgvs.LABS.TEK.COM (Jan Steinman) writes: >What do you mean, "much awaited"? A solid color model has been available in >Tek Smalltalk since 1986! Over two person-years went into Tek Color Smalltalk, >with much of that spent on building a layered architecture. Personally, I'd >love to see the portable part become a standard, but there's NIH to deal with. >There was a paper, but it's not in OOPSLA '86, '87, or '89. (I don't have '88 >handy, and it might be in JOOP. Rebecca Wirfs-Brock, Mike Miller, and Roxanne >Rochat were the authors.) The reference is: "An Integrated Color Smalltalk-80 System," by Rebecca Wirfs-Brock, OOPSLA '88 Conference Proceedings, pp. 71-82. (Also SIGPLAN Notices, Vol. 23, No. 11, November, '88.)
johnson@p.cs.uiuc.edu (02/12/90)
If you want the official ParcPlace position on a subject then you should probably ask ParcPlace. However, ParcPlace doesn't have complete control over Smalltalk. Not only does Digitalk also make a Smalltalk, but there are lots of companies that build tools for Smalltalk. Most of them make these tools for their own use, not for resale. However, there was an announcement in this newsgroup a few months ago about an interface builder that a company was developing for resale, and announcements like that will get more common as (if?) Smalltalk gets more popular. Peter Deutsch had a paper in ECOOP 89 called "The Past, Present, and Future of Smalltalk" that gives hints about ParcPlace's plans. Ralph Johnson
sdl@lyra.mitre.org (Steven D. Litvinchouk) (02/12/90)
In article <6836@tekgvs.LABS.TEK.COM> jans@tekgvs.LABS.TEK.COM (Jan Steinman) writes: > <For example, does anyone know what the much-awaited color imaging model in > Smalltalk will be like? Also, are there any plans to provide some kind of > "Interface Builder" to facilitate developing user interfaces without so much > MVC hacking?> > > What do you mean, "much awaited"? A solid color model has been available in > Tek Smalltalk since 1986! Over two person-years went into Tek Color Smalltalk, > with much of that spent on building a layered architecture. Personally, I'd > love to see the portable part become a standard, but there's NIH to deal with. I'm aware of this. What I meant was having color as part of the "standard" ParcPlace definition; I asked Peter Deutsch at OOPSLA whether Parc would simply adopt Tek's color model, but I didn't get a positive response. > Also available with Tek Smalltalk is Glazier, a user interface builder. I've > played with it a bit -- It's not as spiffy as NeXT's IB, but hey, it comes with > source! See OOPSLA '87 proceedings: "Painless Panes for Smalltalk Windows" by > Jim Alexander. I'm aware of this too. But when I asked Jim Alexander if the source code could be made available to those of us (like myself) who own ParcPlace's implementation rather than Tek's, I didn't get a positive response either. Can someone at Tek upload Glazier to the ParcBench bulletin board? Please forgive me if this sounds like a flame. It's just that it would be nice that future enhancements to Smalltalk would continue to be relatively standard across implementations. It would be too bad if Tek, ParcPlace and Digitalk all adopted different color models, for example! Steven Litvintchouk MITRE Corporation Burlington Road Bedford, MA 01730 (617)271-7753 ARPA: sdl@mbunix.mitre.org UUCP: ...{att,decvax,genrad,ll-xn,philabs,utzoo}!linus!sdl "Where does he get those wonderful toys?" -- J. Nicholson -- Steven Litvintchouk MITRE Corporation Burlington Road Bedford, MA 01730 (617)271-7753 ARPA: sdl@mbunix.mitre.org UUCP: ...{att,decvax,genrad,ll-xn,philabs,utzoo}!linus!sdl "Where does he get those wonderful toys?" -- J. Nicholson
schang@netcom.UUCP (Sehyo Chang) (02/13/90)
In article <SDL.90Feb12104048@lyra.lyra.mitre.org> sdl@lyra.mitre.org (Steven D. Litvinchouk) writes: > >In article <6836@tekgvs.LABS.TEK.COM> jans@tekgvs.LABS.TEK.COM (Jan Steinman) writes: > >> <For example, does anyone know what the much-awaited color imaging model in >> Smalltalk will be like? Also, are there any plans to provide some kind of >> "Interface Builder" to facilitate developing user interfaces without so much >> MVC hacking?> >> >> What do you mean, "much awaited"? A solid color model has been available in >> Tek Smalltalk since 1986! Over two person-years went into Tek Color Smalltalk, >> with much of that spent on building a layered architecture. Personally, I'd >> love to see the portable part become a standard, but there's NIH to deal with. > > >I'm aware of this too. But when I asked Jim Alexander if the source >code could be made available to those of us (like myself) who own >ParcPlace's implementation rather than Tek's, I didn't get a positive >response either. Can someone at Tek upload Glazier to the ParcBench >bulletin board? > >Please forgive me if this sounds like a flame. It's just that it >would be nice that future enhancements to Smalltalk would continue to >be relatively standard across implementations. It would be too bad if >Tek, ParcPlace and Digitalk all adopted different color models, for >example! > You don't have to worry about it very much since Tek is out of smalltalk business and Digitalk's Smalltalk is ParcPlace's smalltalk's image model is different anyway(at least classes are different). Maybe best way to implement color is to give access to internal display object ( such as display bitmap) such that you can hook up host imaging model. That way you can uses X-window's color-map capability. Anyway, I am getting tired of just seeing b/w image. We have gone from bad to worse in PP 2.5, at least in 2.3 you can do some color -- Sehyo Chang schang@netcom.uucp Ascent Logic Corp. (408)943-0630