[comp.lang.smalltalk] Future evolution of Smalltalk-80

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