June 18
Title: Other: Coding Contest -- June 18, 2008 2:30 pm - 6:30 pm
Speaker: Niall Ross
Affiliation: eXtremeMetaProgrammers
Abstract:
The coding contest final.
Speaker Bio:
Time: June 18, 2008 2:30 pm - 6:30 pm
Track: 1
Title: Other: Welcome Reception -- June 18, 2008 7:30 pm - 9:00 pm
Speaker: STIC
Affiliation:
Abstract:
The Welcome Reception for attendees.
Speaker Bio:
Time: June 18, 2008 7:30 pm - 9:00 pm
Track: 1
June 19
Title: Talk: Using VisualWorks Store for GemStone Code Management -- June 19, 2008 8:30 am - 9:15 am
Speaker: Paul Baumann
Affiliation: IntercontinentalExchange
Abstract:
GemKit is an open-source tool that was first created by GemStone Professional Services. Intercontinental Exchange has fixed and enhanced the original Store port of GemKit and is releasing these improvements to the community. Anyone interested in managing GemStone source code using Store will be interested in this technology demonstration. The demonstration will extend beyond GemKit into automated release tools and code management practices.
Speaker Bio:
Paul Baumann has been an avid Smalltalker since 1991. A Tool Smith at heart, Paul has used all Smalltalk dialects and has and enjoys writing portable code. As a GemStone Senior Developer, Paul encouraged GemStone to open-source GemKit and was involved in the initial port to Store.
Time: June 19, 2008 8:30 am - 9:15 am
Track: 1
Slides
Audio Only
Video
Title: Talk: Porting experience report -- June 19, 2008 9:15 am - 10:00 am
Speaker: Thomas Hawker
Affiliation: OOCL
Abstract:
Porting an application in one version of VisualWorks to a newer version is usually straightforward provided the versions are close relatives. The OOCL principle enterprise application, however, is written in VW5i, uses ENVY for its source code management, and involves packages no longer supported for GemStone server code management, display widgets, and testing. This talk will explore the migration path taken, the obstacles encountered, and the solutions developed to move the application to VW7 using Store.
Speaker Bio:
Tom Hawker is an avid Smalltalker, having used it as his language of preference for over 20 years. He has been with OOCL since 2004 and enjoys the position of Senior Framework Engineer, being responsible for all application support frameworks in both the VisualWorks client and the GemStone server code. His principal work prior to the port was the creation and maintenance of an enterprise application integration system from the existing application to new capabilities written in other languages.
Time: June 19, 2008 9:15 am - 10:00 am
Track: 1
Slides
Video
Audio
Title: Keynote: Tampering with Perfection: From Smalltalk to Newspeak -- June 19, 2008 10:30 am - 12:00 pm
Speaker: Gilad Bracha
Affiliation: Cadence
Abstract:
The closer one looks at Smalltalk, the more one appreciates how exquisitely well designed it is. Just as Hoare said of Algol, Smalltalk too was " a language so far ahead of its time, that it was not only an improvement on its predecessors, but also on nearly all its successors". Nevertheless, Smalltalk has shortcomings, in particular with respect to modularity, security and its interplay with the dark world outside its borders.
Newspeak differs from Smalltalk in four key respects: it is purely message based, it treats classes as linguistic entities, it provides access control for methods, and it has no static state. We'll explain what all this means, how these features synergize to provide a powerful component module system and an object-cability security model, and how it leads to an attractive platform well suited to the internet age.
Speaker Bio:
Gilad Bracha is a Distinguished Engineer at Cadence Design Systems. Previously, he was a Computational Theologist and Distinguished Engineer at Sun Microsystems. He is co-author of the Java Language Specification, and a researcher in the area of object-oriented programming languages. Prior to joining Sun, he worked on Strongtalk, the Animorphic Smalltalk System. He received his B.Sc in Mathematics and Computer Science from Ben Gurion University in Israel and a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Utah.
Time: June 19, 2008 10:30 am - 12:00 pm
Track: 1
Slides
Audio
Title: Talk: Interfaces Without Tools -- June 19, 2008 1:30 pm - 2:15 pm
Speaker: Vassili Bykov
Affiliation: Cadence
Abstract:
Programming environments are commonly built as sets of tools, where a tool has the shape of a pre-composed window displaying and manipulating a set of domain objects. This talk takes a critical look at that approach and presents Hopscotch, an application framework and development environment based on different concepts. Hopscotch is the IDE and the application framework of Newspeak, a new language and development platform inspired by Smalltalk and Self.
Speaker Bio:
Vassili Bykov is a long-time member of the Smalltalk community. In the past he has been a TOPLink/Smalltalk developer at The Object People and a technical lead of VisualWorks tools at Cincom. He is currently a member of the Newspeak platform team at Cadence Design Systems, responsible for user interface frameworks and programming tools.
Time: June 19, 2008 1:30 pm - 2:15 pm
Track: 1
Audio
Title: Tutorial: Building a Seaside Application (with GLASS) -- June 19, 2008 1:30 pm - 5:00 pm
Speaker: James Foster
Affiliation: GemStone
Abstract:
This hands-on tutorial will present Seaside and walk through the process of building an application using GLASS (GemStone, Linux, Apache, Seaside, and Smalltalk). Topics covered include handling user logins, where to put session data vs. application data, building reusable components, styling a web site with CSS, and an introduction to Javascript. In a few hours you will build a web site for a children's soccer team that tracks games, players, and other information. (Because we are using an object database, we will not cover object/relational mapping!) You may bring your own computer or team up with someone else who brought one. Participants with a 64-bit machine may wish to pre-install VMware Server (free for Linux or Windows) or VMware Fusion (for Macintosh) so they can use a ready-to-run virtual appliance. Otherwise, a server will be available that can be accessed with a Squeak-based client. While familiarity with Smalltalk is a prerequisite, no prior Seaside or GemStone/S knowledge is required and the Seaside knowledge gained will apply to non-GemStone platforms as well.
Speaker Bio:
As a junior-high student in 1971, James discovered the local university's computer center and a life-long obsession with computers began. He was introduced to Smalltalk/V for the Mac in the mid-90s, and became a Smalltalk bigot. James is on the Smalltalk Engineering team at GemStone Systems, Inc., and has become a passionate advocate for GemStone and Seaside.
Time: June 19, 2008 1:30 pm - 5:00 pm
Track: Tutorial 1
Slides
Title: Tutorial: Craft.CASE tool tutorial -- June 19, 2008 1:30 pm - 5:00 pm
Speaker: Petr Stepanek
Affiliation: e-FractalAbstract:
Craft.CASE is a business process management tool written entirely in VisualWorks. Its main goal is to help process analysts to analyze existing complex processes and process designers to design replacement processes in a way of creating a concise, compendious and consistent model. It helps most in cases of unclear and changing requirements. If the business processes are to be supported by a software product, Craft.CASE supports a UML notation for a conceptual model and maintains links between elements of processes and elements of conceptual model.
Speaker Bio:
Petr Stepanek
Petr Stepanek is a Director for Research and Development in e-Fractal, leading smalltalk company in the market of Czech Republic. During his 15 year of actively practicing Smalltalk he and his team developed a number of applications.
Jiri Berger
Jiri Berger is originally a smalltalk programmer and big fan of Smalltalk. He started e-Fractal at 2000 to serve as technological
support for other companies, some of them already using a Smalltalk application he and Petr Stepanek and a team developed earlier.
Time: June 19, 2008 1:30 pm - 5:00 pm
Track: Tutorial 2
Slides
Title: Talk: Sophie - a multimedia authoring environment built in Smalltalk -- June 19, 2008 2:15 pm - 3:00 pm
Speaker: Michael Rueger
Affiliation: Impara
Abstract:
Sophie is an all purpose tool for dealing with media. It will allow users to easily create books that can contain any sort of media on hand text, image,s sounds, videos, animations. Sophie does for media what a physical book does for text and images: with Sophie, authors can create multimedia books. You might think of it as a wrapper for anything digital.
Sophie is built using Squeak, integrating both OpenSource components like Cairo and freetype as well as platform native technologies like Quicktime.
Speaker Bio:
Michael Rueger is the lead architect in the OpenSource Sophie project. As a co-founder and head of Impara in Magdeburg, Germany, he specializes in system architecture, user interaction design, games and educational tools. He has worked with the Walt Disney Media Research Group, Alan Kay's Viewpoints Research Institute and Hewlett-Packard.
Time: June 19, 2008 2:15 pm - 3:00 pm
Track: 1
Slides
Audio
Video
Title: Talk: Cincom Smalltalk Roadmap 2008 -- June 19, 2008 3:30 pm - 4:15 pm
Speaker: Arden Thomas
Affiliation: Cincom
Abstract:
This presentation discusses what is in Cincom Smalltalk s just released products, as well as plans for future releases. Products discussed are VisualWorks, ObjectStudio8, and ObjectStudio Classic.
Speaker Bio:
Arden Thomas got started with Smalltalk in 1986, looking for better ways to do software development (he found it). He is now the product manager for Cincom Smalltalk, and previously worked as a senior field application engineer for Cincom working to help Cincom's Smalltalk customers, and help move Smalltalk forward. He worked for ParcPlace for many years as a trainer, sales engineer, and consultant, and recently did extensive software development at Forest Investment management, which included choosing and using an application framework.
Time: June 19, 2008 3:30 pm - 4:15 pm
Track: 1
Slides
AudioVideo
Title: Talk: How to find the Bach House in Koethen A typical Smalltalk project -- June 19, 2008 4:15 pm - 5:00 pm
Speaker: Georg Heeg
Affiliation: Georg Heeg eK
Abstract:
Johann Sebastian Bach lived in Koethen from 1717 to 1723. He worked for Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Koethen and composed well-known music. But where did he live? This question has been open for 130+ years. The EU, the state of Anhalt-Saxony, Koethen County, and the City of Koethen sponsored a project to find out. Georg Heeg eK won the bidding and started the digging. After almost two years using VisualWorks, COM-Connect, GemStone/S and Seaside all known data (both text and tax figures) could be viewed in a semantic network. Bibliometry was used to evaluate statements of historians. Finally a process of elimination showed: Bach lived in Schalaunische Str. 44 until he moved to Wallstr. 25/26 in 1719. He always had the same landlord Johann Andreas Lautsch. In early phase existing software packages were evaluated, before agile software development process inside the agile research project was started to get insight in the history of Koethen.
Speaker Bio:
Georg Heeg learned about Smalltalk in 1983 at Dortmund University. In 1987 he founded the now oldest 100% Smalltalk enterprise located in Dortmund, Koethen and Zurich. His organization supports Smalltalk customers world-wide. He is co-founder of ESUG and since 2007 he is Executive Director of STIC Smalltalk Industry Council.
Time: June 19, 2008 4:15 pm - 5:00 pm
Track: 1
Slides
Audio
Video
Title: BOF: Gemstone BOF -- June 19, 2008 6:30 pm - 7:30 pm
Speaker: Monty Williams
Affiliation: GemstoneAbstract:
A Gemstone Birds of a Feather session.
Speaker Bio:
Time: June 19, 2008 6:30 pm - 7:30 pm
Track: 1
June 20
Title: Talk: Making the Most of User Changes -- June 20, 2008 8:30 am - 9:15 am
Speaker: Leandro Caniglia
Affiliation: Caesar Systems
Abstract:
As the Smalltalk programmer compiles methods, evaluates expressions, creates new classes, etc., the environment logs all these actions in a changes file. Logging is not a novel feature though. The important thing is that Smalltalk logs are not just human-readable information; they are made of chunks of loadable scripts that may replay the same actions that originated them. This mechanism has several applications: recover work in case of crash, search through the methods history, share source code, etc. This talk reports the experience of having used the same mechanisms to log and reproduce end-user changes. The diversity of commands grows with the complexity of the software. Therefore, user change logs are richer than Smalltalk logs, and even though the central ideas remain fruitful, solving the problem with all generality is not trivial. Besides explaining implementation details, we will go through a remarkable variety of applications, some of them unthinkable when the authors first introduced this functionality into the PetroVR tool-suite four years ago.
Speaker Bio:
Dr. Leandro Caniglia has served since 2001 as Director of Development of Caesar Systems, a leading company in the field of business simulation software. Prior to this, he had worked as a Smalltalk consultant for several companies in Argentina, Brazil and Chile for more than ten years. He was professor at the University of Buenos Aires from 1979 to 2001, and also worked as a researcher at CONICET, the official board for scientific research in Argentina. In 1997 he founded the MathMorphs Squeak User Group and the Smalltalk User Group of Argentina (SUGAR). Starting in 2007, Caniglia is member of the organizing board for the Annual Argentine Smalltalk Conference.
Time: June 20, 2008 8:30 am - 9:15 am
Track: 1
Slides
Audio
Video
Title: Talk: Web Velocity -- June 20, 2008 8:30 am - 9:15 am
Speaker: Arden Thomas
Affiliation: Cincom Systems
Abstract:
WebVelocity is a new Smalltalk Development Environment that is oriented around Seaside for Web Development and Glorp for Object/Relational Mapping. Come and see how WebVelocity re-targets the Smalltalk development experience into the Web Browser and simplifies the challenge of learning a new environment for newcomers. We'll even build an entire application using Active Record and Scaffolding during the presentation with minimal programming. If you're a fan of Ruby on Rails, you must come and see this presentation.
Speaker Bio:
Arden Thomas got started with Smalltalk in 1986, looking for better ways to do software development (he found it). He is now the product manager for Cincom Smalltalk, and previously worked as a senior field application engineer for Cincom working to help Cincom's Smalltalk customers, and help move Smalltalk forward. He worked for ParcPlace for many years as a trainer, sales engineer, and consultant, and recently did extensive software development at Forest Investment management, which included choosing and using an application framework.
Time: June 20, 2008 8:30 am - 9:15 am
Track: 2
Slides
Video
No Separate Audio
Title: Talk: Smalltalk Development Tools: Bringing Smalltalk to Eclipse -- June 20, 2008 9:15 am - 10:00 am
Speaker: Daniel Heidinga
Affiliation: IBM
Abstract:
Eclipse had its start as a re-implementation of the VisualAge IDE so it's fitting that we bring Smalltalk to Eclipse in the form of the Smalltalk Development Tools (STDT). Based on VisualAge for Smalltalk (aka ENVY/Smalltalk), STDT seeks to bring a Smalltalk runtime into Eclipse.
This talk will provide an overview of the effort to bring Smalltalk to Eclipse, our goals and aspirations, and the current status of the Smalltalk Development Tools. We will present our future plans for STDT, including a discussion of some of the challenges in implementing a Smalltalk IDE in a Java-based platform.
"Imagine, putting source code in files! How quaint." -- Kent Beck
Speaker Bio:
Dan was introduced to Smalltalk during a coop term at IBM, formerly OTI, and he's been hooked ever since. Currently, he can be found at IBM working on the J9 Java VM team. Along with his VM responsibilities, he helps lead tool development and is quickly becoming a Smalltalk expert.
Time: June 20, 2008 9:15 am - 10:00 am
Track: 1
Title: Talk: GLASS: Share Everything -- June 20, 2008 9:15 am - 10:00 am
Speaker: Dale Henrichs
Affiliation: Gemstone
Abstract:
Seaside has been characterized as a "heretical" framework because it breaks many of the widely-accepted "best practices" for web applications, including "share as little state as possible." With GLASS (GemStone/S, Linux, Apache, Seaside, Smalltalk) GemStone takes this heresy to the next level where "everything is shared" - transparently and persistently.
GemStone/S is a Smalltalk-based object server that provides a platform for developing, deploying and managing scalable, persistent, high-performance, distributed applications. GemStone customers have distributed systems running on 100's of CPUs, high-performance systems where transaction rates exceed thousands of transactions per second, and large systems running with thousands of concurrent users.
In this talk, you'll learn how GLASS makes it possible for you to "share everything" in your Seaside application without having to "learn everything" about GemStone/S. In particular you will learn about the extensions that were made to the Seaside framework to make "transparent persistence" possible. You will also learn how to take advantage of these extensions to add "transparent persistence" to your own Seaside application.
Speaker Bio:
Dale has been working with computers since 1975. Smalltalk discovered him while he was at Tektronix in the 1980s and he hasn't looked back. He is currently a Principal Engineer at GemStone Systems, Inc., where he is the primary engineer working on Seaside. His blog, http://gemstonesoup.wordpress.com is about using Seaside and GemStone/S.
Time: June 20, 2008 9:15 am - 10:00 am
Track: 2
Slides
Audio
Video
Title: Keynote: Persistence Solutions for Seaside -- June 20, 2008 10:30 am - 12:00 pm
Speaker: Randal Schwartz
Affiliation: Stonehenge Consulting
Abstract:
Now that Seaside is being established by ever-widening audiences as a flexible and practical web application framework, many are asking the question "but how do I save my data?". In this talk, I'll present and compare an overview of the various solutions for persistence in Seaside, including: saving the image regularly, image segments, Magma, GLORP, and emStone/S. Smalltalk knowledge is presumed, of course.
Speaker Bio:
Randal L. Schwartz (born November 22, 1961) is an American author, system administrator and programming consultant. Schwartz is the co-author of several widely used books about Perl, a programming language for computers, and has written regular columns about Perl for several computer magazines. He popularized the Just another Perl hacker signature programs. He is a founding board member of the Perl Mongers, the worldwide Perl grassroots advocacy organization. He is currently a co-host on FLOSS Weekly.
Schwartz's name is also associated with the Schwartzian transform, a trick to efficiently sort a list according to a computation, without repeating the computation many times for each element of the list.
Since 1985, Schwartz has owned and operated Stonehenge Consulting Services, Inc.
Time: June 20, 2008 10:30 am - 12:00 pm
Track: 1
Slide Set 1 and Slide Set 2
Audio
Video
Title: Talk: Implementing Automatic Exception Reporting in Smalltalk Using Web Services and Rational ClearQuest -- June 20, 2008 1:30 pm - 2:15 pm
Speaker: Mark Petersen
Affiliation: IBM
Abstract:
In today s complex, fast-paced business environment, users should not be bothered with manually submitting defect reports. Applications should automatically submit defect reports to a defect tracking application like ClearQuest or Bugzilla. This presentation showcases the development of Smalltalk web services to implement an SOA solution for integrating defect tracking and reporting in a distributed, multi-platform database application. We will discuss our approach to designing and implementing web services that can be easily invoked from any web service enabled application, including Smalltalk based applications. We will also discuss how these services allow issues to be quickly tracked, shared and routed across a large set of users, and how this methodology can easily be leveraged in many different application environments
Speaker Bio:
Mark Petersen is a Senior Engineer at IBM s Semiconductor Research and Development Center, located in East Fishkill, NY. He has been using Smalltalk for over 10 years to support semiconductor characterization and testsite design.
Time: June 20, 2008 1:30 pm - 2:15 pm
Track: 1
Slides
Audio
No Video Available
Title: Talk: Craft.CASE tool -- June 20, 2008 1:30 pm - 2:15 pm
Speaker: Petr Stepanek
Affiliation: e-Fractal
Abstract:
Craft.CASE is a business process management tool written entirely in VisualWorks. This experience report will discuss the internal architecture of Craft.CASE, its metamodel, components etc. We will report on design and implementation issues, ease and difficulties we had with the implementation using VisualWorks Smalltalk and current state of development.
Speaker Bio:
Petr Stepanek
Petr Stepanek is a Director for Research and Development in e-Fractal, leading smalltalk company in the market of Czech Republic. During his 15 year of actively practicing Smalltalk he and his team developed a number of applications.
Jiri Berger
Jiri Berger is originally a smalltalk programmer and big fan of Smalltalk. He started e-Fractal at 2000 to serve as technological
support for other companies, some of them already using a Smalltalk application he and Petr Stepanek and a team developed earlier.
Time: June 20, 2008 1:30 pm - 2:15 pm
Track: 2
Slides
Title: Tutorial: Acceptance Testing with Fit -- June 20, 2008 1:30 pm - 5:00 pm
Speaker: Randy Coulman
Affiliation: Key Technology
Abstract:
At Smalltalk Solutions 2006, I did a presentation on Ward Cunningham's Framework for Integrated Test (FIT). This tutorial provides a more detailed and interactive introduction.
After a brief introduction to Fit, and the related FitNesse and FitLibrary, I will introduce a small project. As a group, we will write Fit tests for the project and then get them to pass. As part of the exercise, we will talk about good and bad ways of writing Fit tests and introduce the primary ways of connecting the Fit tests to the system under test.
Speaker Bio:
Randy Coulman is a Senior Software Engineer at Key Technology Inc., where he writes Smalltalk and C/C++ software that performs automated inspection and defect removal in the food processing and other industries. He wrote and maintains the CruiseControl interface to VW Smalltalk and is the maintainer of the VW Smalltalk port of Fit, FitNesse, and FitLibrary. He has a B.Sc. and M.Sc. from the University of Saskatchewan.
Time: June 20, 2008 1:30 pm - 5:00 pm
Track: Tutorial 1
Slides
Video
No Audio-Only
Title: Tutorial: Introduction to Smalltalk Using Seaside -- June 20, 2008 1:30 pm - 5:00 pm
Speaker: James Robertson
Affiliation: Cincom Systems
Abstract:
In this tutorial, you'll get an introduction to Seaside 2.8 using Cincom Smalltalk. No knowledge of Cincom Smalltalk is required. No knowledge of Cincom Smalltalk is required, nor is any familiarity with Smalltalk assumed. Attendees will build a simple blog server over the course of the session, and learn about:
-- The Seaside component model
-- Seaside Callbacks
-- Building Forms using Seaside
-- State Tracking
-- Using AJAX to update parts of a Seaside page
-- Integrating CSS styling
-- Integrating external files (Images, etc)
The tutorial will be broken up into as many as 10 sections, depending on time and pacing. Attendees will be able to "synch up" with the current material as the session proceeds, as working versions of the project will be available throughout.
This is not an expert session on Seaside; experts should look elsewhere. This is a beginners walkthrough of Seaside basics.
Speaker Bio:
I have 20 years of experience in the software development industry, as a line developer, a consultant, a pre/post sales engineer, and most recently, as the Product Evangelist for Cincom Smalltalk. I've given talks at a number of industry conferences, including Smalltalk Solutions, Ot/SPA, LinuxWorld/NetworkWorld, ESUG, and XP/Agile conferences. I'm also the author of the Cincom Smalltalk Blog Smalltalk Tidbits, Industry Rants , and the leader of the "Industry Misinterpretations" weekly podcast. I'm also the author of a few open source tools, such as the RSS/Atom news aggregator BottomFeeder, and of the Silt Blog server.
I have deep experience in Smalltalk and OO development, and have pioneered various kinds of product evangelism at Cincom, including the use of blogging and podcasting as a way of expanding mindshare for the products I manage. Most of the tools I use in these endeavors are implemented in Cincom Smalltalk, as a way of eating my own dogfood . This work has given me a background in grassroots level PR and marketing.
Time: June 20, 2008 1:30 pm - 5:00 pm
Track: Tutorial 2
Online Tutorial
Title: Talk: VA Smalltalk V8.0 and Beyond -- June 20, 2008 2:15 pm - 3:00 pm
Speaker: John O'Keefe
Affiliation: Instantiations
Abstract:
The Instantiations VA Smalltalk product continues to evolve. This talk will focus on the new capabilities that are included in V8.0 as well as our product directions beyond that release.
Speaker Bio:
I have now toiled in my chosen profession of software development for over 40 years. The first 25 years were spent developing in everything from assembly language to PL/I and SNOBOL. However, I was introduced to (Digitalk) Smalltalk in 1987 and I have been using Smalltalk almost full-time (still need to climb back into my C suit occasionally) since 1991. I joined the original IBM Smalltalk prototype team in 1990 and was a founding member of the IBM VisualAge Smalltalk development team. I was Team Lead and Chief Architect of IBM VisualAge Smalltalk from 1997 to 2007. After retiring from IBM, I joined Instantiations in February 2007 to lead the VA Smalltalk development team.
Time: June 20, 2008 2:15 pm - 3:00 pm
Track: 1
Slides
Audio
No Video Available
Title: Talk: Smalltalk's Second Surge -- June 20, 2008 2:15 pm - 3:00 pm
Speaker: Arden Thomas
Affiliation: Cincom
Abstract:
This presentation discusses reasons for the marked increase in interest and usage of Smalltalk that we are seeing. This touches on Smalltalk s history (briefly), its influence on other languages, and what the other languages missed. The presentation identifies specific features that were missed by the other languages, and suggest that these features, along with other reasons, are part of the renewed interest seen in Smalltalk today.
Speaker Bio:
Arden Thomas got started with Smalltalk in 1986, looking for better ways to do software development (he found it). He is now the product manager for Cincom Smalltalk, and previously worked as a senior field application engineer for Cincom working to help Cincom's Smalltalk customers, and help move Smalltalk forward. He worked for ParcPlace for many years as a trainer, sales engineer, and consultant, and recently did extensive software development at Forest Investment management, which included choosing and using an application framework.
Time: June 20, 2008 2:15 pm - 3:00 pm
Track: 2
Slides
Audio
Video
Title: Talk: Why Smalltalk? A Healthcare Perspective on Creating Internal Domain Specific Languages -- June 20, 2008 3:30 pm - 4:15 pm
Speaker: Rob Rothwell
Affiliation: Fairfield Medical Center
Abstract:
The current challenge facing Healthcare is not so much a clinical problem; rather, the challenge is a business problem. As an industry, Healthcare stands far behind its counterpart s ability to retrieve and report clinical and business data for a multitude of reasons.
This presentation will use this extra-ordinary setting to explore some of the ways in which Smalltalk is well suited to create an internal Domain Specific Language (DSL) that can enable Healthcare organizations to overcome the following obstacles:
Minimal development staff
Constantly changing reporting requirements
Technically challenged workforce
Finally, we will discuss the emergence of the excellent tools available (such as Squeak and Aida) which makes the creation of such DSL s possible for ordinary programmers willing to take the plunge.
Speaker Bio:
Rob Rothwell is currently the Decision Support Manager for the Six Sigma Department at Fairfield Medical Center in Lancaster Ohio. He enjoys helping others improve their processes and arrived at this conclusion through previous employment as a Physicist, Computer Programmer, and Airborne Ranger Medic.
Time: June 20, 2008 3:30 pm - 4:15 pm
Track: 1
Slides
Audio
Video
Title: Talk: Learn why major corporations are making the move to ObjectStudio -- June 20, 2008 4:15 pm - 5:00 pm
Speaker: Andreas Hiltner
Affiliation: Cincom
Abstract:
This talk will discuss several groundbreaking features of ObjectStudio, such as it is the first and only Smalltalk environment to receive Microsoft's Vista certification, and the first and only Smalltalk to be hosted on a different Smalltalk's VM. It will also cover ObjectStudio's strengths in a Microsoft-centric infrastructure and outline a customer's experience choosing ObjectStudio 8 for a new application during its beta cycle.
Speaker Bio:
Andreas Hiltner is a lead software engineer for Cincom Smalltalk ObjectStudio. He works for Cincom since 1997. Prior to joining Cincom he participated in development and maintenance of a transaction-monitor and database access system on various platforms.
Mark Grinnell is the manager of the ObjectStudio engineering team. He has been associated with ObjectStudio Smalltalk since 1993, when it was known as Enfin Smalltalk, working as both a consultant and a developer. Mark lives and works in New York City.
Time: June 20, 2008 4:15 pm - 5:00 pm
Track: 1
Slides
Audio
Video
Title: Other: Cincom Pizza/Bowling Party -- June 20, 2008 6:30 pm - 8:30 pm
Speaker: Cincom
Affiliation: CincomAbstract:
An interactive session. No previous knowledge of bowling is assumed.
Speaker Bio:
Time: June 20, 2008 6:30 pm - 8:30 pm
Track: 1
June 21
Title: Talk: Using Opentalk in Unexpected Ways -- June 21, 2008 8:30 am - 9:15 am
Speaker: Giorgio Ferraris
Affiliation:
Abstract:
Having a huge application developed under Windows, and trusting the multi platform capabilities of VisualWorks, you decide to deliver on Linux, and sell to customer. Then, you discover that connecting AS400 DB2 using ODBC on Linux is not without problems. Or, even worse, it may be something without solutions. But the customer already paid for it. Time is scarce and Opentalk is here, so, why not just remote the database connection.
This talk is about how easy it was to start, the problems encountered, and the changes needed when remoting part of an application that was not designed in a component-based way. All done thanks to Opentalk.
Once the basic infrastructure was built and a minimum of knowledge was acquired several other components, and also other applications, suddenly became candidates for remoting pieces. The talk will also discuss some of these.
Speaker Bio:
Giorgio Ferraris is a chemical engineer who has been totally devoted to software for the last 27 years. He has been working in Smalltalk since 1985, and Java and C# from their introduction. He has been involved on OO analysis, design and architecture definition for many Italian customers, ranging from small companies to very large ones. He has extensive experience in Object-Relational Mapping, User Interface and Application Building Frameworks for the three languages. He is currently working for several large Italian customers on helping them move to OO development.
Time: June 21, 2008 8:30 am - 9:15 am
Track: 1
Slides
Audio
Video
Title: Talk: AIDA/Scribo, a powerful CMS at your fingertips! -- June 21, 2008 9:15 am - 10:00 am
Speaker: Michael Rueger
Affiliation: Impara
Abstract:
AIDA/Scribo is a light-weight but full featured Content Management System, with CMS core and blog, forum, wiki, sites, and RSS plugins. Scribo follows Aida philosophy, so it is very easy to use, understand and extend. Scribo runs on top of AIDA/Web, an opensource Smalltalk web framework, which allows to write rich, complex but easily maintainable web applications without a fuss. Presentation will show design goals, architecture, concrete examples and future plans for both AIDA/Web and Scribo.
Speaker Bio:
Michael Rueger is the lead architect in the OpenSource Sophie project. As a co-founder and head of Impara in Magdeburg, Germany, he specializes in system architecture, user interaction design, games and educational tools. He has worked with the Walt Disney Media Research Group, Alan Kay's Viewpoints Research Institute and Hewlett-Packard.
Time: June 21, 2008 9:15 am - 10:00 am
Track: 1
Slides
Audio
Video
Title: Keynote: Implementing programming languages for fun and profit with OMeta -- June 21, 2008 10:30 am - 12:00 pm
Speaker: Alessandro Warth
Affiliation: Implementing programming languages for fun and profit with OMetaAbstract:
Adele Goldberg said that "When [Smalltalk] is used to describe an application system, the developer extends Smalltalk,creating a domain-specific language", but this only goes so far. In practice, Smalltalk applications are littered with implementation details that break the abstraction that the programmer was trying to create. (Think of while-loops, for example.) Implementing "real" domain-specific languages --- the kind end-users might use to script our applications --- requires much more time and effort. Or does it?
In this presentation, I will introduce OMeta, a tool that brings programming language implementation within the reach of any programmer, and explore OMeta's metaprogramming capabilities in the contexts of JavaScript and Smalltalk.
Speaker Bio:
Alessandro Warth is a researcher at the Viewpoints Research Institute, where he is working on the "Steps Toward the Reinvention of Programming" project, and also a Ph.D. candidate at UCLA. His current research interests include tools for rapid language prototyping, and improving modularity in dynamic languages. He received a B.S. in Computer Engineering from the University of Miami in 2000, and an M.S. in Computer Science from UCLA in 2006.
Time: June 21, 2008 10:30 am - 12:00 pm
Track: 1
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Title: Talk: Automating Smalltalk Builds with CruiseControl -- June 21, 2008 1:30 pm - 2:15 pm
Speaker: Randy Coulman
Affiliation: Key Technology
Abstract:
With the advent of agile software methodolgies, particularly the practice of Continuous Integration, many teams have begun automating their builds. Over the past several years, many tools have appeared to help with this process. One such tool, CruiseControl, was developed at ThoughtWorks and then open-sourced. CruiseControl was initially targeted at Java projects, but its open, pluggable model makes it usable for almost any kind of automated build, including Smalltalk.
In this presentation, I will introduce CruiseControl and automated builds, discuss CruiseControl's pluggable architecture, show how we've used that architecture to allow CruiseControl to drive automated Smalltalk builds at our company, and talk about how to get started with CruiseControl.
Speaker Bio:
Randy Coulman is a Senior Software Engineer at Key Technology Inc., where he writes Smalltalk and C/C++ software that performs automated inspection and defect removal in the food processing and other industries. He wrote and maintains the CruiseControl interface to VW Smalltalk and is the maintainer of the VW Smalltalk port of Fit, FitNesse, and FitLibrary. He has a B.Sc. and M.Sc. from the University of Saskatchewan.
Time: June 21, 2008 1:30 pm - 2:15 pm
Track: 1
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Title: Talk: Quality Measurements for Hash Functions -- June 21, 2008 2:15 pm - 3:00 pm
Speaker: Andres Valloud
Affiliation: CincomAbstract:
The collections such as those implemented by the classes Set and Dictionary depend strongly on good quality hash functions to provide efficient lookup. However, it is not easy to detect performance problems caused by poor hash functions, nor to quantify the nature of their deficiency.\
This presentation describes three tests that every hash function should satisfy: collision rate, normalized chi square test, and normalized chi square test modulo well chosen prime numbers. These tests are well beyond what can be run from a workspace with ease. As such, a tool specifically designed to test hash functions has been written to exercise them. The audience will be able to interact with the Hash Analysis Tool live during the presentation.\
Speaker Bio:
Andres Valloud has developed in Smalltalk since 1996. He won the 2006 Smalltalk Solutions Coding Contest, ran the competition in 2007, was one of the organizers of the Smalltalks 2007 conference held in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and has written books on Smalltalk. He currently works for Cincom Systems as a lead VM engineer.
Time: June 21, 2008 2:15 pm - 3:00 pm
Track: 1
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Title: Talk: FOLIE: A First Order Logic Interface and Evaluator -- June 21, 2008 3:30 pm - 4:15 pm
Speaker: Tim Dion
Affiliation: OOCL
Abstract:
In very large Object Oriented systems it becomes difficult to manage complex dependencies between interconnecting modules. The authors of this paper proposes using expressions in First Order Logic to reason about module prerequisites and class relations. Specifically, we propose a First Order Logic expression evaluator to make queries in a Smalltalk environment.
This project has a working prototype released under the GNU GPL. It can be easily modified to by adding First Order predicates for specific purposes.
Speaker Bio:
Tim Dion works as a Framework Developer for OOCL. He has developed Smalltalk professionally for 14 years. He has a bachelors of Science in Computer Science form San Francisco State University and a Masters of Science in Engineering Management (with an emphasis in Software Engineering) from Santa Clara University. Tim has worked for Ascent Logic, Boole and Babbage, Presidio Systems, Watkins Johnson, Silicon Valley Group, Genus, and Aixtron. Tim lives in San Jose with his wife and 3 year old son.
Time: June 21, 2008 3:30 pm - 4:15 pm
Track: 1
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Title: Talk: Thinly Sliced: Versioning with Monticello 2 -- June 21, 2008 4:15 pm - 5:00 pm
Speaker: Colin Putney
Affiliation:
Abstract:
Monticello 2 is a ground-up rewrite of Squeaks native versioning system. It features sports a brand new versioning model, a redesigned user-interface, and improvements in performance and scalability. This
demonstration will be about how to use Monticello 2 for practical software development. We'll look at the user interface, and take a peek at what's going on behind it. We'll also review the unique
features of Monticello 2 and where it differs from other Smalltalk versioning systems.
Speaker Bio:
Colin Putney is professional Smalltalk developer, and a member of the Smalltalk community since 2002. He's a lead developer in the Monticello and OmniBrowser projects, and a contributor to Squeak. He lives in Vancouver, British Columbia.
Time: June 21, 2008 4:15 pm - 5:00 pm
Track: 1
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Title: Other: STIC Panel -- June 21, 2008 5:00 pm - 5:45 pm
Speaker: Georg Heeg
Affiliation: Smalltalk Industry Council
Abstract:
An open discussion with the Smalltalk Industry Council board members regarding the conference, the general state of the Smalltalk industry, and other topics of interest to the attendees.
Speaker Bio:
Time: June 21, 2008 5:00 pm - 5:45 pm
Track: 1