The Zen of Smalltalk Algorithm Coding

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Postponed due to the weather until next wednesday.

Bio:

Florin Mateoc is a professional programmer for more than 20 years. He has programmed in Fortran, assembly, Basic, C, C++, Smalltalk, Java and C#. He is not a Smalltalk bigot,he does not think that Smalltalk is either perfect or the end of the evolutionary line of programming languages. He just thinks that nothing better has come along yet. Since discovering Smalltalk in 1995, he has worked with Enfin/ObjectStudio, VisualWorks and VisualAge and he has played with Squeak. He has especiallyenjoyed developing tools: he has contributed improvements to the profilers in VisualWorks, he has developed collaboration (patch and release management) and comparison tools on top of Envy, he has worked on type inferencing for Smalltalk and on automatic translation from Smalltalk to Java.

Abstract:

Taking to heart some advice from Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Florin has taken a truly circuitous route to what started as an intention to develop some better comparison tools. This took him to investigate longest common subsequence algorithms, then to a naive implemention in Smalltalk of a classic algorithm (Hirschberg), then playing with more and more optimized versions, through the discovery of an algorithmic improvement, and finally fighting the inadequacies of simple time recording and profiling tools for fine-grained performance measurements.

Please stop by and visit with us on Dec 1st , 2010 where our long time friend Florin will be discussing how his Smalltalk implementation of a classic algorithm and how the Zen of Smalltalk made it possible.

As always our meetings are open to the general public, so bring a friend.

6:30 – 7pm and the presentation starts 7pm.

Please make note of our new directions:


60 East 42nd Street, Suite 914