Smalltalk Soutions is less then two weeks away! The show this year looks like it will be one of the best ever. Fantastic keynotes, outstanding presenters, and the best programming language there is. What more could you ask for?
For those of you local to the Seattle area or if you just happen to be in town for a day, we have added a one day pass for the conference. The one day conference pass is $200 USD and gives you full access to that days events except for tutorials. One day passes can only be purchased at the conference.
Two Additional Presentations Have Been Added to the Schedule
Squat: a minimal yet extensible Smalltalk system
Presentation
Craig Latta: The NetJam project
Wednesday 9:15 am to 10:00 am
Abstract: Squat (http://netjam.org/squat) is a portable Smalltalk system comprised only of that needed to start and extend itself. With its web-based installer, a visitor can transfer and run the system in a few seconds, by making a single webpage visit. This has the potential to make Smalltalk more accessible to newcomers. Squat's module system affords clean organization of the system, and accurate network distribution of behavior without using files or the compiler. This has the potential to increase the efficacy of Smalltalk software distribution and team development. This presentation is a look behind the scenes. We'll examine Squat's remote message-sending framework, how it enables both remote snapshot dissection and module distribution, and the virtual machine changes underlying it. We'll also look at the module system proper.
Bio: Craig Latta (http://netjam.org), a diligent minimalist, hesitates to say more about himself. However, he points out that he started Smalltalking in 1991 while in the music department at UC Berkeley, and has been an active contributor to Squeak since its first release in 1996, when he was at Interval Research. He currently works as a consultant on projects at Bedarra Research Labs and EZBoard, and records music in a Squeak-based digital studio.
Using SNMP for high-performance network monitoring
Presentation
Alex Pikovsky: Quallaby
Wednesday 2:00 pm to 2:45 pm
Abstract: The SNMP protocol is the principal tool for network discovery, data collection, monitoring and management. However, SNMP structure and design present a number of problems for high-volume/high-performance network monitoring.
In this presentation I start with a brief introduction of SNMP. I then discuss issues involved in SNMP-based data collection. Techniques for building a flexible, high-performance SNMP collection engine are introduced. The second part of the presentation discusses network discovery via SNMP. Alternative approaches are presented and case is made for using relational model for the discovery. It then discusses using a combination of ECMAScript and SQL for SNMP object discovery and data collection.
Bio: Alex Pikovsky became involved with Smalltalk in 1995 when he joined Cincom Systems. At Cincom, he combined consulting gigs with development work on ObjectStudio Smalltalk. Alex redesignedthe native thread engine and developed a new Class Browser for ObjectStudio. He was also interested in transactional computing and co-authored the object-transactional framework ObjectLinks with Stephen Pair. After Cincom's purchase of VisualWorks from ObjectShare, Alex led the Internet Connectivity project for VisualWorks. He designed e-mail and HTTP clients. He was also responsible for XML-to-Object engine and Web Services framework (SOAP and WSDL).
For the last three years Alex has been a principal engineer at Quallaby working on network performance monitoring software. He lives in Boston with his family.
Tutorial Added
Modular Smalltalk -- Refactoring Smalltalk to produce cross-language
consumable components
Tutorial (extra cost applies)
David Simmons: Smallscript Corp
Monday 2:00 pm to 5:30:00 pm
Abstract: A large proportion of software is developed today using a variety of languages for extending or consuming pre-built components and shared class-libraries that are designed to function within one or more widely available cross-language server systems or frameworks. For commercial purposes, it is essential for today's programming languages
to be capable of readily consuming building blocks and libraries from other languages. However, it has become equally critical for commercial viability that such languages also be capable of producing building blocks and libraries in cross-language standard formats for transparent consumption by other languages. This interactive presentation and discussion will both outline the
objectives behind the modular architecture of the S# smalltalk dialect and it will explore the benefits of rethinking the single-image concept by modularizing Smalltalk frameworks and projects.
The presentation will discuss design challenges in modularizing Smalltalk and the related demands of cross-language integration, specific design solutions employed in the implementation of Smallscript Corp's S# smalltalk dialect and its underlying Agile Object System (AOS) Runtime and Framework, and demonstrations of components built in S#. The components presented in
the final section will illustrate Smalltalk's ability to produce industry standard executables and shared-libraries (dll's) that exhibit both fast code execution and small deployment sizes.
Specific attention will be given to capabilities for automatically exposing libraries (written in Smalltalk) to other languages without sacrificing reflection or other dynamic language features when the same components are shared with other Smalltalk executables and dll's.
Depending on audience interest, the talk may also explore just-in-time integration which includes illustration of side-by-side sharing of different(dll) versions of the same class modules within a single application. Of note in such explorations are the capabilities that make it possible for a single application/executable to simultaneously host multiple Smalltalk dialect frameworks.
Bio: David Simmons has been designing and developing language systems and virtual machines since the early 1980's. He was the principal designer and architect for QKS Smalltalk-91, its commercial toolset, and its pre-emptively multi-threaded virtual machine.
Since 1999, his ongoing work on the smalltalk language has focused on the design and development of the S# smalltalk dialect for both Microsoft's .NET Framework and Smallscript Corporation's Agile Object System (AOS) Framework, a modular multi-threaded platform for dynamic languages. This work has concentrated heavily on modularization, performance, object
models, and meta-object protocol capabilities for supporting cross-language integration and runtime framework support of a superset of today's popular language features.
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