U8 - A platform for social development with Smalltalk

Finally U8 has arrived! I have been working on U8 with Elvio Fernandez, Miguel Isasmendi, Matias Castilla and Alejandro Reimondo since september 2011. During that days Ale presented to Smalltalking the S8 platform and decided that is going to have a MIT licence. He offer to Smalltalking to promote the use of Object Technology through S8. Sure we had the option to put S8 in Gitub and wait, but we decided to follow this rule of 100-point project  and we began to think about U8. 


What is U8?
-a platform to DO social working on Smalltalk
-Smalltalking support - 10 years of bakground guarantees the platform is going to alive next 10 years :)
-a microdonation system that promote real work on the platform, a way to support your work, not just a platform for fun, that system we call Brownies system 
-A way to publish your code and already run on the web!
-Forks to do derivate work 
-Save image in real time on the web!



So... What is S8?
There is a lot of topics to talk about..., the topic of most interest to me is to explain what we are doing with S8. A breaf description of our regional point of view about OT and Smalltalk, and our proposal of a modern formulation of development using Smalltalk. The S8 platform was implemented to let us(smalltalkers) be responsible of our execution environments (as it was in the early days of smalltalk).

That impose a change of attitude and the formulation/idea must be supported by tools and evidence/experience of others in the same field. As a demostration on how we can do that with S8, I can mention the platforms we have implemented for using the U8 service (designed to make worldwide social development with smalltalk http://u8.smalltalking.net ), for example How to load Panoramio Templates framework dynamically and render photographs in a page or a wrapper to Google QR Code API (click on ShowIt to view the contribution). Also U8 support works outside a WebBrowser, for example for Desktop or Android devices (see FFI support or demo app using PhoneGap for Android )

How S8 started?

On January,2011 Alejandro Reimondo started a new platform to run his smalltalk frameworks efficiently on top of a modern,  robust and mantained VM.

The VM is implemented in C++, run in multiple platforms,  generate eficient machine code, do not use bytecodes,  is mantained and developed by Google, and a wide  community of users writing enhancements and adaptions.

He called the platform S8; it is a smalltalk running on top  of V8 the Google's javascript VM.

The platform is open and let us extend/adapt the VM  to your needs and support full smalltalks semantics.

In mid-june,2011 Ale released a Proof of Concept version of  the S8 platform to show his sponsors that it is possible  to run efficiently smalltalk on top of that VM with API  calls and other interesting features to make easy the  migration of systems from other smalltalk dialects.

This way to run smalltalk in a three layer architecture, give  the smalltalker more visibility of the execution machinery  (most primitives are written in smalltalk and/or javascript;  a few services are implemented as VM addition/enhancements).

S8 Arquitecture 

All the layers of the architecture are object oriented and  open source; so it is easy to modify at any level  to build/migrate apps to any target.

He also migrate frameworks (and applications)  written with VSE years back as demostration of applications  that run as windows desktop app (32bits), command line 64bits,  embedded in web browser, and running in Android devices  (with transparent integration with native java,  at Android's SDK level).

How to start using U8/S8?

Go to http://u8.smalltalking.net/ and Start Coding!

Have fun!

Leo

Entrenando para el 10k

Despues de un largo tiempo volvi a las pistas, esta vez ya conozco el camino porque lo tuve que padecer antes, asique queria compartirlo con algunos de uds que quizas esten en la misma situacion. Si tenes ganas de empezar a hacer ejercicio (puede ser para bajar un poco de peso, o simplemente para estar mejor) y no tenes mucho tiempo, bajo estas condiciones:

1) Vas al ginmnasio y te rompe las bolas que el profesor te turno te haga hacer la rutina que le hace hacer a todos, y ves al resto como robots cumpliendo ordenes y no te termina de convencer como encima hay que pagar por eso

2) Te aburris en el gimnasio

3) Intentaste correr (o hacer running como le suelen llamar las mentes aporteñadas) pero tambien te aburre o no le encontras la vuelta

Entonces quizas mi receta te sirva, quizas no, de todas formas ahi va.

Engage Mobile Demo v1.0 para IPhone

Luego de algunos dias de implementacion termine la primer version de la demo para Engage Mobile, la verdad muy contento con los resultados obtenidos. En esta primera version pude integrar diferentes tecnologias:

• Login/Logout contra el Application Service Engage
• Front-End DOJO Mobil
• Back-end totalmente en .NET (ASPX y ASHX files) 
• Interfaz de datos JSON-SQL Server 2008 r2
• Integracion con Google Maps 
• Armado dinamico de paginas HTML con soporte de widgets DOJO.

IIS 7

Recientemente cambie de portatil, siempre es un dolor de cabeza resguardar toda la informacion, pero al cabo de unos dias ya estoy produciendo de nuevo. El mayor cambio que hice fue pasarme a 64 bits lo que al principio me hacia ruido ahora estoy muy contento. Esoy utilizando Windows 7 Enterprise 64 bits, y por supuesto me encontre con el nuevo IIS7. En este post simplemente voy a poner lo basico para un desarrollador que todavia tiene codigo en ASP classic, como hacerlo funcionar en IIS7!

Formatting Dojo Mobile Data Lists

Although this blog explain hoy to reading JSON Data with Dojo very well, I want to post a step-by-step example that explain how to formatting the data to get different data lists types in your mobile application.

Processing en JavaScript

Hoy estuve investigando el framework Processing. Originalmente creado en Java y corriendo sobre la VM Java, hoy existe un port para JavaScript que lo pueden ver aqui. Realmente muy bueno para relacionarse con artistas que deseen crear arte digital, pero tambien para programadores que deseen llevar su GUI un paso mas alla. El unico requisito es que corre sobre HTML5. Ya lo estaremos probando, muy recomendable.

Cazadores de Targets

Hace unos meses los amigos de MG54 nos solicitaron una app web que pudiera realizar deteccion de cara y una vez detectada una cara pudiera sacar una foto y enviarla al servidor.