Hi

Have you looked at Smalltalk/X?

Includes GUI builders, super fast and has ValueModels.

Maybe Pharo can learn a bit from ST/X?

See  http://www.exept.de/en/products/smalltalk-x/stx-overview

Regards

Rudi

On 20 Jun 2009, at 6:17 AM, Cameron Sanders <[email protected]> wrote:

To come back to Juan's latest question, let me say:
I spent many months last year loading software development environments for a variety of programming languages to see the state of the world. And I found myself disappointed that we really haven't bested smalltalk yet. Smalltalk is great, I just figured... something better would have come along over the years. For ease of realizing a design vision, and platform independence, it is hard to beat smalltalk.

I could not commit to VisualWorks because of the licensing terms, for commercialize work. Dolphin is platform limited, and differs from the other smalltalks. VisualAge is too pricey! [I tried the other flavors too...] These are good tools, they just do not fit my requirements or means. After digging around, I like the licensing terms of Pharo. It is on the right track. It is rich in functionality. It works; it is robust.

I am strictly a user right now, but I will try to contribute in the future. I like Stef's idea of a "bounty" -- great idea!

So my advice for a free smalltalk is -- drumroll please... -- Pharo. But don't ignore Squeak itself, nor the variants, depending on your needs.

That said, the the lack of a GUI builder is a clear deficiency. But we will add one. [Ahem... i sound like royalty with my use of the word "we"; i co-authored one in C/X/motif in the 1980s... it should be at least that simple in smalltalk. The aforementioned tool took two of us about one week; but I know nothing about Morph at this time.] Depending on your needs, simple GUI's are easy to build with Morph, but sometimes (most?) i just want to paint the interface and give it some thought before fully wiring it. It allows one to quickly probe whether the vision(the GUI) is an acceptable/ comfortable/sufficient/... means for a user to interact with the application. Especially when working with others programmers, and worse, those pesky clients! Clients love interfaces.

(I still do not know what Polymorph is, is it a completely different system? a piggy-back system? They can co-exist right? but they use a different value-changed notification system?)

Pharo has value models, right? [Or am i... -- I'll look later.]

Again, thanks to the good work of the Pharo people (and Squeak people), I have found some sanity in life. I got tired of Python changing. I cannot stand strong typing. I love Smalltalk. And the best part is that it's free!

Cheers,
Cam
PS: speed is another high-priority. VisualWorks and Dolphin feel really snappy!


On Jun 19, 2009, at 9:01 PM, Steve Wirts wrote:

Value Models, TypeConverter library, SubCanvas support(super powerful idea here), etc... some really wonderful idioms long lost in OO guis. VisualWorks had some really nice frameworks that were discarded due to them being undervalued. I hope to eventually re-introduce some of these fun frameworks into pharo given my time constraints and interest from potential users.

see
http://c2.com/ppr/vmodels.html

Magritte seems like it might be a superior alternative to VisualWorks ValueModels; I haven't explored it enough to really know yet. Pharo is the most exciting thing to come along for me in quite awhile!



On Fri, Jun 19, 2009 at 4:42 PM, Stéphane Ducasse <[email protected] r> wrote:
>
> I don't know what I am waiting for -- except more time -- because I
> guess I should build such a thing. (Are there any Pharo/squeak coders > available for part-time consulting over the next year? ...At student
> level pay I must add.)
>
> I too want a GUI builder.


me too :)
So may be we could have a kind of bounty system for pharo.
Frankly we are rather full and we (the core) have not that much time for
extensions but we would support any work in the direction of
       UIBuilder
       TestServer
       Package....
       FileWrite-Rio kind of integration
       Better MC support (yes I should look at MC1.5)
       Better SUnit
       Better tools (for example like the newInspector)

Stef

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