Bye, bye Jtalk... Hello Amber!

86 views

Skip to first unread message

Nicolas Petton

unread,

Sep 13, 2011, 6:35:56 PM9/13/11

to jtalk-project, Pharo-project, esug-list, squea...@lists.squeakfoundation.org, iliad, sea...@lists.squeakfoundation.org

As some of you may know there is a new Smalltalk in town - and up until
today it was called Jtalk. After a furious three week development
period
after the ESUG 2011 conference (where Jtalk raised some eyebrows) we
are
now making a first release humbly numbered 0.9. We are also taking the
opportunity to pick a slicker name for Jtalk - Amber!

New website is at:

http://www.amber-lang.net

So, why would you take a look at Amber?

In our opinion Amber is perfectly positioned for the HTML5 onslaught
and
the explosion of all-things-javascript like for example Nodejs. It is a
Smalltalk that plays well with others and can seamlessly use Javascript
libraries.

At the same time Amber feels like a *real* Smalltalk, the environment
is
all there including Workspace, Transcript, Browser,
senders/implementors/references to class, TestRunner, Inspectors, code
editing with syntax coloring and a Debugger. There is no image, but all
compilation is incremental.

Below follows a summary of the massive changes since ESUG that
triggered
us to make a first release.

We hope you join us in developing Amber and having fun! There is
already
work being made in using Amber on top of Java using Rhino, using Amber
for making games and lots more. Fork at github, join in #amber-lang on
freenode and hop onto the mailing list.

regards, Nicolas & Göran

(and thanks to Laurent, David, Bernat, Stefan, Raimon, Alexandre, Dale,
Juraj, Ken, Pavel and everyone else that have been involved)
---------------------------------------

Language, compiler and runtime

- New 100x faster parser built using PEGjs instead of the old parser
built using PetitParser.
- New much faster ChunkParser implementation in handwritten Amber
instead of using PetitParser.
- Improved parsing error report with quoted source code plus marker
pinpointing parsing error.
- Removed PetitParser since it is no longer needed by Amber itself.
- Added compiler optimizations in the form of speculative inlining of
specific messages and control structures.
- Added support for dynamic Arrays, just like in Squeak/Pharo.
- Added support for similar dynamic Dictionaries, not seen in other
Smalltalks.
- Added & and | as allowed binary selectors and implemented them in
Boolean.
- Added a Set implementation.
- Added basic support for Packages, dependency management coming soon.

...and various extensions, enhancements and bug fixes to the library
classes.

Development environment

- A working Debugger with integrated inspector, proceed etc.
- A structure with multiple different Amber environments in different
directories.
- A working amberc command line compiler including a Makefile for
recompiling the whole Amber.
- Enabled TestRunner in the IDE for running unit tests based on SUnit.
- Added "File in" button in Workspace to easily paste and filein source
code in chunk format in the IDE.
- Added "Rename package" and "Remove package" buttons to browser that
use the new Package model.
- Added a standalone webDAV server in Amber so that it is simpler to
get
up and running and able to commit code locally.

Example code and ports

- Ported ProfStef interactive tutorial, available on Amber homepage
(www.amber-lang.net/learn.html) but also in examples directory.
- Included the ESUG presentation as an example also in the examples
directory.
- Several new examples running on Node.js and webOS included, all with
Makefiles.

Various other things

- Issue tracker on github now used as primary source, closed a bunch of
reported issues.
- Wiki pages on github with information on how to port code from other
Smalltalks, lists of articles, tutorials, roadmap and more.