Skip to content

Latest commit

 

History

History
299 lines (211 loc) · 16.7 KB

Pharo30ChangeLogs.md

File metadata and controls

299 lines (211 loc) · 16.7 KB
Raw

#Pharo 3.0

A large, international community of developers worked hard for several months to iron out all problems and to make Pharo 3.0 a great release. Pharo 3.0 saw a large set of changes, infrastructural improvements and others: more than 2350 tickets got closed. Our actions are targeted at building a sound infrastructure on top of which new generation of systems (graphics, UI, ...) can be built.
Remember that Pharo is your open-source system!

In addition, many changes have been made to support the generation of a more modular system. This release integrates a quite large (really!) number of fixes and enhancements you can find at pharo.fogbugz.com (you will need an account there, sorry). Ideed, we closed 2331 tickets! Thank you all for your contribution.

The Fosdem14 presentation has a short overview of what is new in Pharo3:

#User interface

  • Glamorous Theme (renamed into Pharo3 Theme to avoid collisions) is not the default theme.
  • A new eclipse-based icon set is not the default icon set.
  • We made a theme cleanup, keeping just the ones that we can maintain properly.

#Infrastructure

  • Zeroconf scripts updated.
  • Pharo ppa for ubuntu systems now available.
  • Instead of the one .app directory, we now have three zip files for the three architectures: mac, win and linux.
  • As google has shutdown the API support of the Issue Tracker, we moved to FogBugz. (Thank you, Fog Creek!) https://pharo.fogbugz.com
  • Downloads have been moved from gforge to a dedicated server at http://files.pharo.org.
  • Better staged integration process using Jenkins and github. https://pharo.fogbugz.com

#Kernel

##Continuations

Continuations are now part of Pharo by default. They let the developer save the execution flow and restart it later. Continuations were originally developped for Seaside. Example : You have an object with the instance variable executionFlow.

You save the current execution flow with :

Continuation currentDo: [ :cc | executionFlow := cc]
You restart the execution flow with :
  executionFlow value: true

##Simple Delayed Execution for Blocks

We introduce new protocols for block delayed execution:

  • valueWithInterval: aDelay. Executes the block every x milliseconds specified in arguments. Answers the process, so you can terminate it.
  • valueAfterWaiting: aDelay. Waits for a delay, then executes the block. Answers the process so you can terminate it These messages may slightly be adapted in future version to fit with the overall API.

##Announcements

Announcements are now more flexible. Instead of special classes they can now be any Object implementing #handlesAnnouncement: . In particular it means that now we can use symbols as Announcements. Here is an example:

Announcer new 
   on: #FOO send: #bar to: nil;
   announce: #FOO "should raise DNU bar"

#AST + Compiler

##AST code cleanup

We deprecated the wrong protocol for AST visitors. Visitors do not accept they visit! Now the code is clean and really nice.

To migrate to the new API the following script should do most of the work, one still needs to check the senders of the old selectors before:

m := (RBProgramNodeVisitor allSubclasses gather: #methods) 
    select: [ :e | e selector beginsWith: 'accept' ].

m do: [ :e | 
  e methodClass compile: (e sourceCode copyReplaceAll: 'accept' with: 'visit').
  e methodClass removeSelector: e selector ].

Full AST interpreter

Pharo now contains an interpreter for the RB AST that is complete and he able to run all Kernel tests. It means that it covers the full exception and non-local return semantics of Pharo. This interpreter has been used to develop test coverage tools.

##Compiler

The Opal Compiler is now the default compiler. Opal is a new compiler framework using visitors and a bytecode level intermediate representation. A massive amount of improvements have been done to make Opal working smoothly and allowing Opal to be a key infrastructure for the next generation of Pharo. The compiler API has been cleaned and simplified. Special thanks for Marcus Denker and Clément Béra. The following short paper has a detailed description: http://rmod.lille.inria.fr/archives/papers/Bera13a-OpalIWST.pdf

Opal is based on the RB AST.

  • It uses the RB Parser.
  • It is based on an IR backend for byte-code generation and manipulation.
  • Opal supports a mapping for debugger uses AST (pc->AST and AST->highlighting).
  • This version offers a radical cleanup of compiler related API.
  • The Bytecode->AST decompilation is not used anywhere in the system.

##Debugger

Pharo3 includes a new Debugger: it has a real UI-independent model The new debugger as a first Spec based UI and we can expect in the future to see more advanced features.

The old debugger was mixing the view and the model. It was complex and hard to understand and extend. Andrei Chis from SCG (University of Bern) implemented a complete clean new debugger model that can be scripted. On top of this model, a new UI similar to the old has been implemented. Special thanks to Andrei Chis

CommandLine

The commandline handling has been enhanced.

./pharo Pharo.image URL --install

One does not need to give the configuration if the configuration name is canonical, e.g. has the same name as the repository. There is a full chapter in the deep into Pharo book http://www.deepintopharo.com

#Better OS Interaction

Pharo 30 supports direct access to OS Environment via OSEnvironment

Smalltalk os env asDictionary inspect

#Graphics

Athens, the vector graphics canvas is now integrated to Pharo. In the future it will replace all the existing canvases.

  • Athens will be the base for a new generation of a fully vector graphics IDE. Cairo is now supported by default on all platforms. A tutorial and set of examples are available, a book chapter is being written.
  • A new class Margin has been introduced to represent 1,2, or 4 number margins. It plays nicely with the widgets specification.
  • Color has been simplified and cleaned. In the past Color did not support alpha blending and TranslucentColor was there to play this role. Now there is only one class for Color supporting by default translucency.

##Cleaning / Improving Morphic

  • PasteUpMorph has been cleaned. Now WorldMorph is not hidden inside PasteUpMorph but a nice subclass.
  • FontChooser has been cleaned.
  • Widget improvements. MorphTreeMorph, Lists and other got improved.
  • New Widgets such as Tabs have been added.
  • A new list implementation has been introduced.
  • A massive cleanup of layout frame usage has been performed to avoid creating unnecessary rectangles and in particular bogus (negative extent rectangles) creation is avoided. In Pharo 4.0 the class Rectangle should respect by construction the constraint that the height and width of a rectangle should be positive.

#Spec

Spec, the new interface building framework, has been improved.

  • Dependecy on Morphic has been reduced
  • New widgets are supported
  • A ticking window has been introduced

#Tools

New tools have been developed. One of the idea is to deprecate the old tools and to write the new ones in Spec so that we can reuse the logic.

  • New ChangeSorter. A new changeSorter has been developed by B. Van Ryseghem in Spec.
  • New Inspector. Implementation based on Spec and the fast NewList.
  • Suggestions. Pharo 30 support AST-based navigation and menu selection. In the Code editor, try option-t on with the cursor in the code, it will open a list of the operation you can perform on the selected code. Now it is possible to get the only applicable refactorings or senders/implementors based on the AST node on which the cursor is. Thanks Gisela Decuzzi for this great work.
  • Kommiter. By default all the changes you did in your image get published, Komitter allows one to cherry pick the changes that should be published. Kommitter has been developed by B. Van Ryseghem in Spec.
  • Versionner. Versionner helps to generate and manage Metacello configurations. It has been developed by C. Demarey.
  • Enhanced Refactorings. Some refactorings had some bugs that are now fixed.
  • Nautilus has been improved to take advantage of the new package representation.
  • Nautilus has been enhanced to simplify some switching and to take advantage of the package tags. Packages can be filtered to improve visibility.
  • Enhanced Finder. The finder is a great tool to help finding information. When using the example based find, it has been improved to show the actual classes that effectively matched the examples.
  • Enhanced Critics Browser. The critics browser has been cleaned and enhanced.

##Removal of old tools

  • Most old tools have been replaced by new implementation. The remaining old tools will be removed in Pharo4.
  • Hierarchy Browser has been removed as the new browser can show a class hierarchy view.
  • A new minimalist browser (emergency browser) is under development.

#Low-Level Meta Model

  • New Code Importer A new code importer has been extracted from the previous implementation.
  • New class Builder The old class builder was an arcane and magical piece of code responsible for building classes and migrating instances.
  • Slots are meta objects representing instances Similarly to classes being first class objects, slots are first class instance variables. Slots are used by the new class builder and in the future slots will be able to drive Opal to generate efficient code to implement different semantics. To know more about slots read the OOPSLA paper of Verwaest, Bruni et al. http://rmod.lille.inria.fr/archives/papers/Verw11a-OOSPLA11-FlexibleObjectLayouts.pdf
  • Cleaning Trait implementation A first cleaning of the trait implementation has been done. Now classes and traits are a bit more polymorphic.

#Enhancements of NativeBoost

Many improvements have been made in NativeBoost. The most important are

#Infrastructure

##RPackage

RPackage went from one RPackageSet / multiple RPackages for one Monticello package to one RPackage / multiple RPackageTags for one Monticello package. This has improved synchronisation between Monticello and RPackage, and allowed new operations (promote / demote) and tools (PackageTreeNautilus).

  • PackageInfo is not used anymore and ready to be removed from the system.
  • Removal of the old ClassOrganizer.

##FileSystem improvements

Some aspects of filesystem got revisited and stabilised.

##Keymappings

###CharacterScanner improvements

The characterScanner has been speed up and cleaned. Special thanks to Tim Rowledge and Nicolas Cellier for their hard work.

#VM

  • Created Pharo VM flavours, branded and packaged for Pharo needs.
  • Sound plugin are now included in the VM. There are still problems with the ALSA plugin in linux, but we going to fix them soon.
  • Serial plugin was fixed and now is working properly (cool for those doing robotics and arduino stuff)
  • Pharo VM for OSX now compiles over CLANG.
  • Fixed an important bug who prevented the PharoS VM to run properly on OSX.
  • Included several fixes ported from the vanilla CogVM.
  • iPharoS VM (for iOS) now can be built using the regulat CMakeMaker process.

#Networking

  • New version of Zinc and Zodiac. Sven van Caekenberghe continued to systematically improve the HTTP client/server framework.
  • Socket leaking external semaphores have been fixed.

#Cleanups

  • There was major refactoring/cleanup of DateAndTime.
  • More modularization cleanings have been made such as more Polymorph (Polymorph is an extension of Morph) merging into Morphic.
  • Language environments have been cleaned to prepare the future cleaning of leading character in string encodings.
  • Many hidden dependencies between packages and projects have been cleaned.
  • WorldMenu, Preferences and Utilities are finally gone.
  • Cleanup of Tools menu.
  • Many classes got documented.

#A glimpse at Pharo 40

For Pharo 40 we really want to put in place a building process that takes a small image and build by loading the system everybody uses. It will be based on the expertise built by Pavel Krivanek with his minimal images and the work of Guillermo Polito on bootstrapping the system. There will be a repackaging effort in addition to change to manage the project using Git as a back-end. From the Vm perspective we will use the new bytecode sets developed by C. Bera and E. Miranda as well as Spur and many other improvements.

The video from Fosdem2014 has a discussion of what is planed for Pharo4 in addition:

#External projects and packages

Many existing add-on projects already moved their code to Pharo 3.0 and many new shiny projects already appeared. To name just a few examples:

##Frameworks:

  • Artefact - easily generate PDF documents
  • Pillar - writing docu and books based on wiki syntax
  • Log4S - a logging framework
  • Roassal3D - a visualization engine
  • Scheduler - to schedule timers
  • Units - to deal with units
  • DBPedia - to access structured content from DBPedia, a Wikipedia project
  • Moose - platform for software and data analysis
  • GToolkit - Pharo development tools
  • Glamour - data browsing engine
  • CodeCity - 3D visualization engine
  • Roassal - 2D visualization engine
  • GraphET - charting engine

##Web:

  • Seaside - the well know Smalltalk web framework
  • Pier - the Seaside based CMS
  • Bootstrap - Seaside add-on to to easily use the Twitter Bootstrap library
  • Iliad - for modern web applications

##Testing:

  • Autotest - a live testing tool
  • BabyMock2 - a visual mock object library

##Tools:

  • ScriptManager - to manage scripts
  • Pomodoro - a pomodoro timer
  • TilingWindowManager - to organize your screen

##Applications:

  • Phratch - a port of Scratch for Pharo

##Databases:

###Tools

  • DBXTalk/Glorp - provides Object-Relational mapping for several database drivers (PostgreSQL, OpenDBXDriver).
  • Voyage - provides Object-Document mapping for MongoDB.

###Drivers

  • OpenDBXDriver - provides access relational databases (MySQL, Oracle, MSSQL, PostgreSQL)
  • PunQLite - provides access to the embeddable UnQlite NoSQL database engine
  • SQLite3 - provides access the embeddable SQLite3 relational database engine
  • MongoTalk - provides access to Mongo databases.
  • Prhiak - provides access to Riak databases.

##For compatibility:

  • FFI - the foreign function interface that later got replaced by NativeBoost
  • OldAlien - the Alien interface for external bindings

This and much more is easily installable with a few clicks right from the Configuration browser in the world menu. Many more Pharo 3.0 projects are available on repositories like Smalltalkhub.com, GitHub and others.

#Contributors We always say Pharo is yours. Is yours because we made it for you, but most important, because is made by the unvaluable contributions of our great community (yourself).
In this version contributed directly:

Jean-Baptiste Arnaud, Simon Allier, Philippe Back, Clément Bera, Alexandre Bergel, Torsten Bergmann, Usman Bhatti, Vincent Blondeau, Noury Bouraqadi, Johan Brichau, Camillo Bruni, Sven Van Caekenberghe, Damien Cassou, Nicolas Cellier, Guido Chari, Dimitris Chloupis, Bernardo Contreras, Ben Coman, Gabriel Omar Cotelli, Jordi Delgado, Tommaso Del Sasso, Gisela Decuzzi, Christophe Demarey, Sean DeNigris, Marcus Denker, Martin Dias, Erwan Douaille, Stephane Ducasse, Stephan Eggermont, Pablo Estefo, Luc Fabresse, Johan Fabry, Hilaire Fernandes, Nahuel Garbezza, Leo Gassman, Lucas Giudice, Tudor Girba, Thierry Goubier, Norbert Hartl, Dale Henrichs, Pablo Herrero, Nicolai Hess, Andre Hora, Alejandro Infante, Ricardo Jacas, Henrik Sperre Johansen, Denis Kudryashov, Pavel Krivanek, Juraj Kubelka, Laurent Laffont, Jannik Laval, Max Leske, David Lewis, Diego Lont, Esteban Lorenzano, Stefan Marr, Mariano Martinez Peck, Roberto Minelli, Hernan Morales Durand, Eliot Miranda, Fernando Olivero, Nicolas Papagna Maldonado, Nick Papoylias, Nicolas Passerini, Vanessa Peña, Nicolas Petton, Alain Plantec, Guillermo Polito, Damien Pollet, Jochen Rick, Benjamin Van Ryseghem, Ronie Salgado, Camille Teruel, Juan Pablo Sandoval Alcocer, Samir Saleh, Frank Shearar, Igor Stasenko, Aliaksei Syrel, Sebastian Tleye, Yuriy Tymchuk, Andres Valloud, Martin Walk, Hernan Wilkinson.

And many many more who contributed indirectly, by reporting bugs, participating in discussion threads, providing feedback, etc., etc., etc.