For those of you not on the VWNC list here is an interesting post from Terry Raymond. He now has 2.2 mb base image which I believe he is using to support Smalltalk scripting type of functionality. The image only supports file-ins and chunck format at that but he stated the he could probably add support for parcels. Apparently, said support may add another 1 mb. I assume that if on Windows we should still be able to use compression and Reshacker to deliver a relatively small exe which matters to some for example those downloading apps from the web or perhaps folks deploying on PocketPC devices etc. If this can be made to support parcels maybe its the start of an SRE (Smalltalk Runtime Environment).

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Hi

There is now a stripper for 7.3.1 in
http://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/CincomSmalltalkWiki/DOWNLOAD/CODE/stripper731.zip

Watch the word wrap.

Read the include readme and follow the instructions to create a
small(2.2mb)
7.3.1 image.

The stripped image does not support parcels.

Terry

===========================================================
Terry Raymond Smalltalk Professional Debug Package
Crafted Smalltalk
80 Lazywood Ln.
Tiverton, RI 02878
(401) 624-4517 traymond@craftedsmalltalk.com
<http://www.craftedsmalltalk.com>
===========================================================

So I am in the middle of porting the NYC Smalltalk servers to CentOS. One of the issues that I ran into is that in Windows I setup the “start in” directory for the images (VisualWorks images i.e not gifs, etc) that I launch to be the directory where the image resides. In Linux I did not know how to do this. As a matter of fact, some folks that I know did not know either and build their own mechanism for resolving filenames. However, I want simply for code that worked in Windows to work in Linux without change or without changing the respective file locations.

Basically I wanted for the following to be true:

Given that ‘blah.txt’ exits in the same directory as where the current image exits then the following should be true:

(ObjectMemory imageName asFilename directory) = ‘blah.txt’ asFilename directory.

Well, thanks to one of the member of the VisualWorks Non-Commercial List I was able to to as much. The answer is simple: “change to” the working directory in your shell script to be what you need. This exactly what we do with a Windows shortcut except that in Linux we use scripting. So for example my startup script looks like this:

VISUALWORKS=/apps/visualworks/vw7.3.1

export VISUALWORKS

cd /apps/visualworks/vw7.3.1/image/wiki

/apps/visualworks/vw7.3.1/bin/linux86/visual /apps/visualworks/vw7.3.1/image/wiki/visual.im

Hope this is useful, it sure saved me some headaches.

From the VisualWorks Non-Commercial List

Given the following code:

set1 := Set with: 2 with: 3 with: 4.

set2 := Set with: 4 with: 3 with: 2.

Should:

set1 = set2 ?

BTW, the above in Smalltalk reads set1 is equal to set2.

The answer is that in VisualWorks it does not but in Squeak it does. I favor the Squeak implementation. In anycase, we also got a taste of Set theory. Check out my favorite line out of the thread:

“You are right on target. The so-called “axiom of regularity” in ZFC axiomatic set theory forbids self inclusion. This was needed to avoid Russell’s antinomy and a number of related paradoxes. Depending on the formulation of the set theory (there are so many!), you either get axioms of this form or the theory is constructive (the “type theory” solution of Russell and Whitehead), again forbidding self inclusion. I’m not aware of any modern set theories where the term “set” is used to denote a mathematical object which can contain itself.

I ain’t no mathemetition though…”

Gotta love that.

BTW, click on Bertrand above if interested in reading more about his “paradox”.