OSX port

[talksmall]

I have just checked in my changes to add OSX support to Strongtalk.
This is r162 in SVN.

I have uploaded an archive containing an image file and sources
directory that are required for this version. As a convenience I have
also uploaded pre-built binaries for OSX (Leopard) and Windows. If
there is interest I can do the same for Linux.

Note that the OSX version is only suitable for command-line scripting.
To make use of this download the binary to a directory of your choice.
Download the image archive and unpack this into the same directory.

To launch the VM from the command line you should cd to the directory
into which you downloaded the VM and execute

./strongtalk -script <path-to-script>

Scripts should be in Smalltalk chunk format. As a starter I have
uploaded a sample script test.dlt. This runs the Smalltalk-level tests
and recompiles all methods in the image. It is a basic test that your
installation is working properly.

Please try it out if you are interested in OSX support. I would
welcome any feedback.

-talksmall

[Gilad Bracha]

Awesome. Do you have Aliens working on Strongtalk yet? It's a very small step from Aliens to ObjectiveCAliens - at which point a GUI is in reach, I think.

--
Cheers, Gilad

[talksmall]

Hi Gilad,

On Aug 10, 3:31 am, Gilad Bracha <gbra...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Awesome. Do you have Aliens working on Strongtalk yet? It's a very small
> step from Aliens to ObjectiveCAliens - at which point a GUI is in reach, I
> think.
>

I haven't started on Aliens yet, but it is next on my list. I have
started looking at the documentation from the NS Aliens work.

My instinct is to re-use as much of the NS Aliens code as possible.
One concern I have with that approach is that my understanding is that
the NewSpeak code, including presumably the Aliens code, is licensed
by Cadence under an Apache license, whereas contributions to
Strongtalk are licensed under a BSD license. One approach to this is
to keep the Aliens code separate from the Strongtalk base and load it
into the image as a separate step, however that is not very
convenient, particularly if we were to depend upon an ObjectCAlien to
enable an OSX UI.

Do you think Cadence would be prepared to dual license the Aliens code
under BSD and Apache?

The alternative is to re-implement Aliens from scratch as per the
specs from the documentation. It's more work, but it would be license
clean.

-talksmall

[Gilad Bracha]

I wouldn't fret over the licensing. Apache is pretty damn liberal.  The only real downside is that you will have different licenses for different parts of the source. Long term, this is probably inevitable anyway. Each class in Strongtalk points to its own license already. And, oh, BTW, there is no point trying to get Cadence to change the licensing.  My original plan was to use BSD, but their lawyers wanted Apache. In any event, at this point there is nobody to talk to about this.

So I would not waste scarce resources re-inventing the alien wheel. Once you get the aliens working, it shouldn't be too hard to get the entire Brazil/Hopscotch GUI running as well. And that will have the same license.

--
Cheers, Gilad

[Brian T. Rice]

(IANAL) Porting code between languages generally doesn't require a transfer of license, as long as the languages require sufficiently different means of expression. Algorithms and designs aren't copyrighted - just the text of the implementation. In this case, though, both licenses are quite liberal so a violation would be pretty inoffensive as long as citation were made.

P.S. Thanks for the great work in increasing Strongtalk's portability.

[talksmall]

On Aug 11, 5:05 am, "Brian T. Rice" <briantr...@gmail.com> wrote:
> (IANAL) Porting code between languages generally doesn't require a  
> transfer of license, as long as the languages require sufficiently  
> different means of expression. Algorithms and designs aren't  
> copyrighted - just the text of the implementation. In this case,  
> though, both licenses are quite liberal so a violation would be pretty  
> inoffensive as long as citation were made.

IANAL either. My concern is not compatibility between the licenses
themselves. Apache certainly allows the creation of derivative works
and as far as I can tell the BSD license is not incompatible with it.
I am more concerned with the wording of the contributor license which
requires contributors to assert that they are the copyright owner
(clearly in this case I would not be) and that their contributions
will be licensed under the BSD license.

That said I won't fret about it.

>
> P.S. Thanks for the great work in increasing Strongtalk's portability.

You're welcome :)

>
> On Aug 10, 2009, at 8:59 PM, Gilad Bracha wrote:
>
> > I wouldn't fret over the licensing. Apache is pretty damn liberal.  
> > The only real downside is that you will have different licenses for  
> > different parts of the source. Long term, this is probably  
> > inevitable anyway. Each class in Strongtalk points to its own  
> > license already. And, oh, BTW, there is no point trying to get  
> > Cadence to change the licensing.  My original plan was to use BSD,  
> > but their lawyers wanted Apache. In any event, at this point there  
> > is nobody to talk to about this.
>
> > So I would not waste scarce resources re-inventing the alien wheel.  
> > Once you get the aliens working, it shouldn't be too hard to get the  
> > entire Brazil/Hopscotch GUI running as well. And that will have the  
> > same license.
>

> > On Mon, Aug 10, 2009 at 5:37 AM, talksmall <StephenLR...@googlemail.com

[albanread]

Thanks very much for posting the prebuilt windows executable; along
with the image and source files as it is really useful.
I really like the idea of strongtalk and have tried using it a few
times over the years; each time it has seemed frustratingly fragile.
So far I am finding this r162 build much more stable and usable.

[talksmall]

Hi albanread,
Glad you like it so far.

When you do run into problems (and sadly you will - there's lots still
to do), please post them to the list and I will do my best to fix
them.

talksmall