More Good News

It seems BEA is looking at scripting languages to add to its arsenal of products. It seems dynamic languages are making all kinds of head way in the world. ROCK!

SmallHttpUnitTest Rewrite Update

After finally fixing SmallHttpUnitTest for VisualWorks and having talks with several folks at Smalltalk Solutions, I felt it was time to revamp SmallHttpUnitTest. For one, it was slightly misnamed in that the tests are really end-to-end acceptance tests. I was trying to make the navigation easier through the objects. But, somewhere I made a wrong turn. I started to really look at the Selenium Testing Framework. It runs your tests in the browser via Javascript. Nice. It's simple and it works with a nice a table structure like FIT. You can even command it remotely from another language as well such as Smalltalk, java, Ruby, and more.

Well, it all got me thinking how nice it would be to drive the browser like Selenium does, but with the nice object traversal that I used for SmallHttpUnitTest. You can command Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Opera via Javascript. It's a slightly different idea from Selenium in that the web page that you're loading does not need to have any Javascript loaded. The Javascript works externally via a script that runs the web browser via COM (for Microsoft) and I'm still researching Firefox/Mozilla (but, I know its possible to drive them with Javascript as well). It would seem some Ruby people had the same idea! But, I want to take it further. Javascript makes a lot of things easy since it is so well-integrated into the browser.

The pieces of SmallHttpUnitTest that are in Smalltalk will be re-implemented in Javascript. A lot of the browser handling code is no longer needed! The Smalltalk piece will be an external application that watches what you do as you're traversing your web application and takes notes. Once you've finished navigating, you could update your asserts for each page load and have Smalltalk generate the Javascript for you. I'm doing the proof of concept for Internet Explorer since I am more familiar with the OLE/COM model to drive IE. But, I expect Firefox to be a no brainer. I should only have to replace one object and everything will just work. So, you could have one script that drives both. There's a few more surprises that I want to work out and I will be blogging about them. I have a lot of work ahead of me. This a completely different approach than what I was thinking of doing at Smalltalk Solutions. I've been slow doing the prototype, but I have been a busy boy!

You might be wondering how I got the DOM searching of HttpUnitTest working in Javascript since it uses generators and doesNotUnderstand: a lot. Well, that's a topic for another blog entry. Let's just say that higher order functions are your best friend.

Java's Coolness Declining

It seems Apple is dumping java for Cocoa development. I've felt the java coolness factor on the decline for awhile now and scripting languages on the rise with the developer of Rails getting Google hacker of year. I love seeing dynamic languages getting more of the lime light. It's going to be interesting how Python and Ruby will change developer's perspectives. No matter what, it will be a fun ride.

Shocked

I used to hate Slipknot. I thought they were the worst band. I hated their first two albums, I hated their look, I hated everything about them. So, I'm watching Fuse and they sneak in their latest song, "Before I Forget" and I thought, "Wow, what a great song!" Well, I then notice the masks and think, "There's no way this is Slipknot. This ROCKS!" Well, to make a long story short, I bought the album on a whim expecting it to have that song and maybe two others. Imagine my surprise when I loved every song on this album! The amazing thing is that I hate all their albums still (I tried them again). "Vol. 3" has a great mixture of different songs. It's not all one trick. So, I work my way to "Stone Sour" and I love it too. I'm just shocked how a band can go from awful to awesome in my eyes. I can't stop listening to either "Stone Sour" or "Vol. 3". I hope they keep up the great work! This ain't nu metal anymore.

Touche Pussycat!

I overheard this on the ruby mailing list from Florian Groß:

Eric Mahurin wrote:

The biggest problem I have with being able to add/remove/modify methods of an object (using a meta class or directly in the object's class) is the future of optimization in Ruby. Adding methods may not cause too much of an issue, but modifying them sure could.

"Researchers seeking to improve performance should improve their compilers instead of compromising their languages."
-- An Efficient Implementation of SELF, a Dynamically-Typed Object-Oriented Language Based on Prototypes, July 1989

I love this reply! What a great quote. It ties in nicely with "premature optimization is the root of all evil." Amen, brother! Just remember, people used to think Lisp and Smalltalk were too slow as well. Virtual machines used to be a dirty word. Now, java and c# are two of the most popular corporate languages and they both run off VMs. I love the prototype parts of Ruby. They are especially great for debugging specific instances and other things. Let's make our languages more dynamic, not less. More is less.

Offensive

I just found this document on the net entitled "How To Become A Hacker" By Eric Raymond. I read through a bit of it and I couldn't believe it. I stopped reading it immediately. Am I the only programmer offended by crap like this? I hate the words "geek" and "nerd". And "hacker" to me means someone who programs Big Balls Of Mud and doesn't care. This kind of junk just keeps stereotypes of smart people alive. It's derogatory and offensive. It's like the stereotypes of southern people. We don't all live in trailer parks and listen to country music. It's just like not all smart people are social misfits, play dungeons and dragons, and can't wash ourselves properly. I'm tired of the demonizing of intelligent people. We are the problem solvers of the world and you'd think that would be respected and revered. You'd think we wouldn't perpetuate bull crap like this. OK, ok, I'll get off my soapbox.

I Couldn't Have Said It Better

Hwee Boon Yar states, "Smalltalk just fulfills most of my needs more easily." I couldn't have it said it better myself. Despite some of my blog entries, I don't totally hate java. I'm still looking for the perfect language. I'm just amazed in terms of productivity that nothing has yet to surpass Smalltalk that I can find. Of course, that's not to say that Smalltalk doesn't have some warts, but they don't get in my way.

Thinking Forth

It seems Vincent Foley has been hooked by Leo Brodie's "Thinking Forth" as well. I blogged about it a while back. It's an excellent read. If you don't care for Forth, you still need to read the chapters: Preliminary Design/Decomposition, Detailed Design/Problem Solving, Factoring, and Minimizing Control Structures. It's full of great advice and remember it was written in 1984. Another depressing example of how our industry forgets past lessons. But, I think this trend is changing. Many of us are exploring the past and uncovering lost gems. We shall not make the same mistakes again.

Smalltalk Shop

Alright, who didn't tell me about the Smalltalk Shop? They have the classic balloon in a poster and t-shirts with that hot new balloon logo. You can even get the logos in different colors! I think I might be buying some stuff soon...=)

Annotations

Well, with all of the noise generated by generics in the java world, it seems annotations got lost in the cracks. They allow you to add metadata to fields, methods, and types. With this metadata, you can reflect at compile-time or run-time. This opens a lot of cool possibilities in java! So, I got down and started to write some example code. One of the first snags that I ran into is that they can not be subtyped even though the syntax for creating them is similiar to interfaces. The second snag was adding behavior which didn't suprise me, but I wished for it. Annotations allow you to capture data into structures. But, the more you play with them, the more you desire to use polymorphism instead of using instanceof everywhere. I think it would have made annotations way more powerful and cool. It just seems they went half way. Why didn't they just make annotations full objects? Anyway, they are still a welcome addition to the language and they are the reason that EJB 3.0 is a lot simpler to create entities. Anything that makes java/j2ee simpler is alright by me.

Huh?

I've been reading up on java 5.0 and I came across this tutorial on the new generics framework.

A note on naming conventions. We recommend that you use pithy (single character
if possible) yet evocative names for formal type parameters.

Huh? I couldn't believe my eyes and what I was reading. But, here's the code sample:

public interface List<E> {
void add(E x);
Iterator<E> iterator();
}
public interface Iterator<E> {
E next();
boolean hasNext();
}

I can see why so many java advocates have been clamoring about the complexity. Shouldn't we be making the code more readable? The paper goes through the problems with generics and addresses each one. It leaves you asking yourself, "Is this going too far?" It especially gets messy around how to treat subclasses and interfaces. The answer makes everything more restrictive which sounds good on paper (if you like type safety), but it also reduces polymorphic possibilities. I shutter at the thought of the code that I will come across from inexperienced OO developers. Much like I have seen "private" misused in method declarations. I expect to see generics misused to be more restrictive that they need to be as well. I applaud the effort to reduce the need to type cast, but what price shall we pay for safety? Generics do make like easier for some issues, but it complicates others. Is it really worth it? I find unit tests a much better tool to fix type issues than enforcing type safety.

Omaha Smalltalkers

Well, it seems attendance was light last week and I was hoping that Gary Overgard could give his talk again on doing a report/code distribution on Small-Fit. It provides a lite-weight alternative to the current approach for Fit & Fitnesse. Its advantage is that it is much easier to debug, but still gives advantage of documentation. If we have time, I will be showing Ruby for Smalltalkers talk.

As always bring your passion, code snippets, and books to discuss!

Here's all of the details:

When: August 9, 2005, 7pm - 9pm
Where: Offices of Northern Natural Gas
1111 S 103rd Street
Omaha Nebraska 68154

Office is at 103rd & Pacific. Guests can park in the Northern visitors parking area back of building, or across the street at the mall. Enter in front door, we'll greet you at the door at 7:00pm. If you arrive a bit later, just tell the guard at the reception desk you're here for the Smalltalk user meeting in the 1st floor training room.

Songs That Give Strength

I love music. I love all kinds. But, every once in a while, you get find something special. Something that touches your soul and you completely relate to. There's only a few albums that touch me deeply. But, one artist, Assemblage 23, continues to always write lyrics that dig deep inside of me. I've been listening to his music all week. His lyrics are all introspective and he writes the perfect music to back it up. It's a source of inspiration and strength for me. One song that really gets me everytime I hear it is "Lullaby". Here's the lyrics:

May you find solace in the gentle arms of sleep
Despite the wolves outside your door
In time you will see them all as harmless
And their idle threats easy to ignore

And if ever fate should choose to smite you
Stand your ground, never walk away
Please don't ever let the world defeat you
Don't get buried in its decay

As you drift into the gauzy realm of dreams
May you take comfort in the thought that you are safe
For it only takes a fraction of a second
For all of this to change

CH
Return to me
When slumber's fog has lifted
Return to me
Stronger than before

As you sink beneath the soothing streams of time
May you be thankful that you had another day
For there comes a time when each of us will enter
A sleep from which we will never wake

And if ever fate should choose to smite you
Stand your ground, never walk away
Please don't ever let the world defeat you
Don't get buried in its decay

Close your eyes now, if only for a moment
For it's time you get some rest
The wolves are gone and nothing here can harm you
Let go of your fragile consciousness

(CH)

His lyrics are about the dark places all of us find ourselves in from time to time. But, there's always this ray of sunshine rising out of the bleakness to get out and make your life better. I love it. I wish I could find more music like this. One of his main influences is Depeche Mode and I've been slowly getting their back catalogue. All great stuff!

One Size Fits All

There has been discussion on the Squeak mailing list about Smalltalk vs. Ruby. It started out as a Rails vs. Seaside question and then turned broader. Personally, I think there is no comparison between Rails and Seaside. Rails includes a simple way to map objects to an OO relational database with a traditional request/response model. Seaside on the other hand does not have a persistence model (they let you decide) and has a more advant-garde yet easier flow model. They both share the simpler is better principle of design, but they have attacked it at different angles. Rails is easier to swallow for most programmers, since it is closer to what they are used to. But, I find Seaside to be the simplest way to build web applications. There are things to learn from both.

On to the broader question of Ruby vs. Smalltalk, there was a lot of discussion of image-based vs. file-based environments. But, I think the one we need to keep in mind is the following quote from Enrico Schwass:

I guess smalltalk and especially squeak get now the chance to spread
wider. Why? Because of the growing ruby community. Smalltalk is
mentioned everywhere. Most of the newer ruby guys are curious enough to
take a look. Like me. This could start a smalltalk renaissance. If you
welcome them friendly :)

The key point is that we should understand that programmers are coming from other backgrounds. We should show them what Smalltalk has to offer and not why we think their language is inferior. We all have things to learn from one another. We need to embrace them with open arms. Smalltalk is cool because it is image-based, but it's a hard sell to a lot of programmers. It presents an alien world that is both strange and unfamiliar. Ruby allows most programmers to stay comfortable in their file-based world, yet take a peak into a pure OO world. One step at a time, I think Ruby prepares programmers for an image-based world. Also, I think they will come to Smalltalk with a different mindset and this will push boundaries. This is a good thing. I am continually amazed at how inventive and creative members of the Ruby comunity truly are. They will be a welcome addition to our community. Besides, who says one language has to rule them all? Let's embrace Ruby for what it's good for and do the same for Smalltalk. I enjoy programming in both and love being a part of their communities. Of course, I enjoy programming in a lot of different languages. Each one has it's pluses and minuses. So, instead of bickering about which one is better, let's learn what's great about each one.

10 Things Every Java Programmer Should Know About Ruby

The slides for Jim Weirich's "10 Things Every Java Programmer Should Know About Ruby" are up and ready for your reading. The slides are excellent and provide a great argument for dynamic languages. Everything he talks about is true for Smalltalk as well except that everything really is an object (including blocks) in Smalltalk. I do love Ruby, I think it has a lot of good ideas (like mix-ins). I especially love the Ruby community. It's young, vibrant and they embrace the simple for doing complex things. It's possible.

Just Say No....To Kitten Huffing?

My gut is hurting. But, did you know kitten huffing was bad for your health? This is some pretty dark and funny stuff! The included video is simply hilarious. Enjoy.

Alice Cooper

The master released his new album, "Dirty Diamonds" and it is brilliant. I'm a huge of Alice and he never has disappointed me. But, I wasn't expecting this. It's a complete throwback to his early 70's material. It's diverse and his twisted sense of humour comes shining through. I can't wait to see the tour! I hope he never stops making albums.

Which Altar Do You Want To Worship At?

"Finally, the days where a novice programmer can know all of a language are gone, at least for the languages in widespread industrial use. Few people know "all of C" or "all of Java" either and none of those are novices. It follows that nobody should have to apologize for the fact that novices do not know all of C++. What you must do - in any language - is to pick a subset, get working writing code, and gradually learn more of the language, its libraries, and its tools."
-Bjarne Stroustrup from What is C++ So Big?"

"If a system is to serve the creative spirit, it must be entirely comprehensible to a single individual."
-Dan Ingalls from Design Principles Behind Smalltalk

Rock on dynamic brothers. Rock on!

Great Comeback

Doug Stewart sent me an exhcange between Andrew Tanenbaum and Linus Torvalds. What I love about it is Andrew sends a hateful email to Linus. The comeback that he returns is just classic. Here's Alan's email to Linus:

" I still maintain the point that designing a monolithic kernel in 1991 is a fundamental error. Be thankful you are not my
student. You would not get a high grade for such a design :-)"

And here's Linus' answer (Please, put down the Coke can unless you want it on the monitor or up your nose):

" Your job is being a professor and researcher: That's one hell of a good excuse for some of the brain-damages of minix."

The only thing I can say is "Touché Pussycat!"

Wheel Of Fortune Programming

Memory used to be expensive, so developers thought of creative ways to get the most out of the least. One of the ingenius ways to save memory was to abbreviate variable names. What amazes me is that this school of thought has carried on even today. We no longer have memory constraints and in fact, source code is miniscule in comparison to everything else on your computer. Your code will be read more times than what it takes you to write it. More time will be spent understanding it. So, why raise the cognitive friction by playing "Wheel Of Fortune"? Vowels are not expensive. They are free! Remember that the next time you want to abbreviate variables that you are going to make someone do mental gymnastics just to grok something as simple as a variable name. Wouldn't you want them to comprehend the logic instead? Think about it. Where do you want the brain power to go to? Or maybe you like your fellow developers cursing your name at 3:00am when they're trying to fix your code. Have pity for the ones that will read your code. Make it read as closely to human language as you possibly can. It's just good style and polite.