VA Smalltalk Update

VA Smalltalk Update
Copyright © 2013 Instantiations, Inc.
John O’Keefe
Chief Technical Officer
Instantiations, Inc.

Agenda
• Company Update
• Current Release Content
• Futures
• Q&A

Company Update

Company Events
• New Instantiations company incorporated in 2010
to focus exclusively on Smalltalk
• Over 3 years as pure Smalltalk company
• Number of users and revenues continue to grow
year-to-year
year-to-year
• Organization has grown significantly
• Increased permanent staff
• Using contractors for additional capacity

Non-Development Activity
• University Outreach – 2012/2013
• University of Chile
• Roassal Visualization Framework
• User Outreach
• Conference participation
• Conference participation
• ESUG, STIC, Smalltalks
• VA Smalltalk Google Group
• Aggregated on [Smalltalk] http://forum.world.st
• Old forum content (prior to May, 2011) still available (readonly)
• “Videos and Podcasts” pages on website
• http://www.instantiations.com/resources/st4u_videos.html
• http://www.instantiations.com/resources/videos.html

New Release
V8.6 is available NOW!

V8.6 Content
• GUI Look and Feel
• A Scintillating Text Editor
• Windows Common Controls improvements

A Scintillating Text Editor
• Complete redesign of our default text editor
component
• Built on the modern, popular and well supported Scintilla
editing component
• Compatibility layer provides seamless integration
• API-compatible with CwText
• Exposes the full Scintilla API
• Users can use the new text editor in their own applications
• Used by Browsers, Inspectors, Workspace, etc.
• Multiple undo/redo support
• Supports hardware-accelerated rendering with
Microsoft’s DirectWrite technology

A Scintillating Text Editor
continued
• Come to the “Scintillating! A Modernized Text
Editor for VA Smalltalk” session @ 10:45
tomorrow morning for details

Windows Common Controls
DateTimePicker
• New attributes
• today shown
• weeks numbered
• multiple selection (a
range of dates up to a
maximum size as set by
maximum size as set by
the user)
• first day of the week
settable
• Bolded dates (May 27)

V8.6 Content
continued
• Development Tools
• Scintillating Browsers, Inspectors and Workspaces
• Breakpoint improvements
• ImageShortName preference setting
• Monticello Importer improvements
• Monticello Importer improvements
• XD Features for GLORP and Seaside

Scintillating Browsers, Inspectors
and Workspaces
• Optional
• Enabled by default
• Customized color syntax highlighter
• Additional styling options and features
• Now available in workspaces and inspectors, too!
• Now available in workspaces and inspectors, too!
• Autocompletion support using VA Assist’s code
completion engine with new popup widget

and Workspaces
• New Code Assisting features:
• []() match highlighting
• Calltips
• Text manipulation keyboard shortcuts
• and much more …
• and much more …
• New stylizable and configurable margins:
• Breakpoints
• Line numbers
• Code fold indicators

Scintilla Debugger Example

and Workspaces
• Come to the “Scintillating! A Modernized Text
Editor for VA Smalltalk” session @ 10:45
tomorrow morning for details

Breakpoint Improvement
• One-shot breakpoint
• Removes itself after firing once

Monticello Importer
Improvements
• Version name of imported code defaults to
Monticello version (for example, NickAger.257)
• Monticello version info copied to Application
Notes to aid cross-referencing
Name: Seaside-Tests-Core-NickAger.257
Name: Seaside-Tests-Core-NickAger.257
Author: NickAger
Time: 21 March 2012, 5:49:03 am
tidied WATestingMetadataFileLibrary

ImageShortName Preference
• Preference used to
identify windows
associated with
development image
• Example:
• Example:
[EtBaseTools]
ImageShortName=SS

XD Features
• Cross-development (XD) environment is used
• To build headless runtimes
• To build runtimes for deployment on different platforms
(ex: Windows -> Linux)
• Loading code into a cross-development (XD)
• Loading code into a cross-development (XD)
image is based on XD feature classes and maps
• Added XD features for GLORP
• Added XD feature for Seaside

V8.6 Content
continued
• Web Interface
• Grease 1.0.7 / Seaside 3.0.8
• SST Servlet multipart forms

Seaside and Grease
• New port levels available
• Grease 1.0.7
• Seaside 3.0.8 (not frozen)
• Mostly small bug fixes
• Configuration maps identify the Metacello
• Configuration maps identify the Metacello
package version used for the port:
• ConfigurationOfGrease-topa.192
• ConfigurationOfSeaside30-DiegoLont.392

HTTP Servlet Multipart Message
• Inbound only
• Multipart/form and Multipart/mixed

continued
POST
/tests/functional/WAUploadFunctionalTest?_s=pU08M3vR6qTed
T0h&_k=VsZWNm5-UNwo78kY HTTP/1.1Host: localhost:8788User-
Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.1; rv:20.0)
Gecko/20100101 Firefox/20.0Accept:
text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,*/*
;q=0.8Accept-Language: en-US,en;q=0.5Accept-Encoding:
gzip, deflateReferer:
http://localhost:8788/tests/functional/WAUploadFunctional
Test_s=pU08M3vR6qTedT0h&_k=e1rAWMZHeKaprINZConnection:
• Incoming HTTP
message from
Seaside
WAUploadFuncti
onalTest
Test_s=pU08M3vR6qTedT0h&_k=e1rAWMZHeKaprINZConnection:
keep-aliveContentContent--Type: multipart/formType: multipart/form--datadata; boundary=---
------------------------27682861628308Content-Length:
7204-----------------------------27682861628308Content-
Disposition: form-data; name="4";
filename="abtIS.ini"Content-Type: application/octet-
stream; Windows .INI for VA Smalltalk;;
=============================================; =====
Begin development time only stanzas
=====; ================================================
[Xml]; This stanza is only needed at runtime if your
runtime app used XML.DefaultResourceQualifier=C:Program
FilesInstantiationsVA Smalltalk8.6xml
-----------------------------27682861628308--

continued

V8.6 Content
continued
• Database
• DB2 currency (tested on 10.5)
• GLORP currency

GLORP
• GLORP port updated to 7.9.1-4
• Changes in GLORP from 0.3.178 are mainly due to Alan
Knight’s work
• Experimental Host Variable support (default is
off)
off)
• Improved error handling
• Optional logging of low-level database exceptions
• If you are interested in GLORP, please join Niall
Ross for “How and Where in GLORP” on
Wednesday @ 10:45

V8.6 Content
continued
• Installation
• InstallShield on Windows
• New Environments Management Tool

Windows Installer

Windows Installer
continued
• Built with industry-standard InstallShield
• 2 Downloadable Install Packages
• Code
• Installs Client and Manager by default (for standalone)
• Optional installation of only Client or Manager (for shared
• Optional installation of only Client or Manager (for shared
code library)
• Emsrv and Emadmin tools are always installed
• Documentation
• Smaller code download if you don’t want local
documentation
• Allows between-release updates to match on-line
documentation

Windows Installer
continued
• All files except mgr86.dat installed in
• %ProgramFiles% (32-bit)
• %ProgramFiles(x86)% (64-bit)
• UAC compliant directory locations for writable
files
Manager installed in
• Manager installed in %AllUsersProfile%
• C:Documents And SettingsAllUsers (Windows XP)
• C:Program Data (Windows Vista and later)
• Environments utility used to create and manage
writable files

Windows Installer
continued
• Environments shortcut
installed on the Start
Menu and (optionally)
Desktop
• Launch Environments
• Launch Environments
to create and start a
new development
image

Windows Uninstaller
• Repair/Uninstall
available from
Windows Control
Panel
• Manager Library is
not removed
not removed
unless requested
• No files created
by Environments
are removed

Windows Uninstaller
continued
• Repair Option
• Repairs corrupted
installation
• Optionally obtain
a new copy of the
Manager Library
Manager Library

Environments Management Tool
• Environments creates and manages
development environments
• Available on all platforms
• Replaces command line tool vasetup on UNIX
• Create environments (working directories) containing
image and .INI files
image and .INI files
• Manage environments
• Start an image
• Modify settings such as (Envy) server name and library name and
location
• Browse content of an environment
• Get a fresh copy of an image
• Create a shortcut on the desktop to start the image (Windows)
• Delete an environment

Environments Tool Examples

V8.6 Content
continued
• Platforms
• Fedora 19
• Ubuntu 13.04
• Windows 8.1

Looking to the Future

Future Releases
• Release schedule is about once a year
• Depends on volume of content
• Current content information in Product Roadmap
• http://www.instantiations.com/products/roadmap.html
• Content based on requirements from:
• Content based on requirements from:
• Direct customer interactions
• Forums
• Support cases
• Internals

Future Releases
Candidate Items
• Internationalization
• Full Unicode/UTF-8 (including VM and system
APIs)
• Based on International Components for Unicode (ICU) module
• Web interface
• Seaside 3.x
• Continuation support
• Web services debugging support/doc
• Web services tooling improvements
• Validating XML parser

Future Releases
Candidate Items
• Infrastructure
• Announcements (needed for Roassal)
• Full .zip, .gz, and inflate/deflate support
• Consolidate product settings using Settings Framework
• Settings Dialogs to complement Settings Framework
• Consolidate product logging using Logging Framework
• Consolidate product logging using Logging Framework
• Middleware
• DB2 Stored Procedures improvements
• GLORP Programmer’s Reference
• Active Records built on GLORP
• ‘Simple’ DB support (MySQL, SQLite, or ??)
• MQ currency
• TCP/IP V6
• 0MQ

Future Releases
Candidate Items
• GUI Look-and-Feel
• Icon/image support enhancements
• Support for alpha-channel (blending)
• Support for .PNG file (R/W)
• GTK+ 3.x on Linux
Windows Common Controls additions
• Windows Common Controls additions
• Back-port widgets from add-ons (ex: UML Designer)

Future Releases
Candidate Items
• Development Tools
• Updated EMSRV
• Full file system support on UNIX
• Libraries > 2GB on Linux
• Removal of multi-processor check on Windows
• Roassal
• Roassal
• Redesigned Change Browser & Merge Tool
• Installation
• UNIX .RPM install package
• “Quiet” install (no UI)

Future Releases
Candidate Items
• Security
• ‘Full’ security framework -- OpenSSL 1.0 wrappers
• ‘Basic’ security framework (consolidate existing
OpenSSL wrappers)
• Performance and Scalability
• Performance and Scalability
• Incremental garbage collection
• 64-bit Smalltalk
• Class library performance hotspots
• Integrate KES/Stats goodie for object monitoring
• Platform
• Windows Services control moved from C to Smalltalk

Future Releases
Candidate Items
• External Interfaces
• JNIport (currently available on VAStGoodies.com)
• .NET/C#
• Other
• Class Libraries
Collection hashing policies
• Collection hashing policies
• Sorted collection sorting policies
• Other
• We’re always looking for suggestions

How Do You Get VA Smalltalk?
• Download evaluation copy
• http://www.instantiations.com/products/vasmalltalk/download.html
• Buy development licenses
• http://www.instantiations.com/products/purchase.html
• Download development build
• Download development build
• Announced in VA Smalltalk Google Group
• Be a committer on an Open Source project
• http://www.instantiations.com/company/open-source.html
• Work for an educational institution
• http://www.instantiations.com/products/academic-license-
program.html

Contact us
• General information
• info@instantiations.com
• Sales
• sales@instantiations.com
• Support
• Support
• support@instantiations.com
• Me
• john_okeefe@instantiations.com

Questions?

VA Smalltalk Update

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