This post originated from an RSS feed registered with Agile Buzz
by James Robertson.
Original Post: Smalltalk is now mobile in WindowsCE.
Feed Title: Michael Lucas-Smith
Feed URL: http://www.michaellucassmith.com/site.atom
Feed Description: Smalltalk and my misinterpretations of life
100 days to do it - 97 days it worked. STarted in 2002 October.
Licensed to Cincom in 2003. Very soon now, 2004, it is being shipped
by Cincom.
WindowsCE v4.x / WindowsCE.NET / WindowsCE for PocketPC..
It works on Siemens Simpad, skeye.pad, Tatung WebPad, HP iPaq,
Future.pad CE, O2 XDA, T-Mobile MDA, T-Mobile MDA II.
Smalltalk and mobility in 1972 at Xerox Parcplace. The original goal
was the Dynabook. Same size as a book and weight as a book.
Smalltalk mobilizes with WindowsCE Smalltalk and it only took 30
years! :)
Adele Goldberg - "This does indeed look like the original Dynabook
conception"
Smalltalk is still not right. We want people to model their thoughts - not program.
It is something for specialists for people who can think in abstract terms.
Marketting: Pace is critical, very much so. ROI must be within 18
months. Portability is important. J2ME differs a lot from J2EE. The
.NET framework is very different to the portable .NET compact
framework. Heeg decided to stay away from the compact framework.
Gartner: "It does not matter what features Cincom Smalltalk has,
Smalltalk Market will not grow."
Tom Nies: "In 1845 people wanted to close the patent office because
all inventions were made already."
German mobile devices companies are delighted about Smalltalk. His
slide was about reality, not marketting as it was labelled :)
Heeg met with Hoeft & Wessel and made an example application in a
night for the H&W people. As-is stocktaking for inventory importing
and exporting to Excel. Twenty-five hours.
IBD Automation Technology heard about them in 2003. They made them a
demonstration Facility Management system. "We loaded into our newest
device, the mobile Future.Pad and it worked. This is what I call
Rapid Development." Two weeks.
Smalltalk is ideal for the mobile market. Pace: Ideal for rapid
development. Portable: Identical on all Platforms. Identical on
Client, Server and Mobile Device. The mobile market is ideal for
SMalltalk. Technically perfect match. Many companies are new to
mobility. Market has significant growth.
Target market is for the professional usage of mobility. Sortfware
producers for device manufacturers and solution providers.
Competition: J2ME / PJ (Incompatible with J2EE). C/C (every device
is different). .NET Compact Framework (Considered immature,
WindowsCE only). Big Suites (IBM, Sybase, Oracle).
Question: What's Java?
a) It's a coffee
Mobile your Smalltalk application - and lets you develop new smalltalk mobile applications. You need: VW 7.2 VM for Windows CE (x86 and StrongArm/xScale). CE-Parcel (Just for CE specific code including Unicode support). Newest updated are on www.heeg.de (or wait for VW7.2.1)
Load the CE parcel, save your image and copy it over to the device.. and you're done. Make sure to add a registry entry for .im files starting the smalltalk VM automatically.
You end up with the identical application on your desktop as well as your device.
The Refactoring Browser is too big to fit on a screen of a mobile device. When he started it up, a cute little 'shwing' sound chimes in to the microphone.
The Future-Pad is about A5 size and you can fit the browser in nicely. A hand held device is too small.
Because this is Cincom smalltalk, we get high development productivity and quick deployment. Flexible during execution and has high adaptibility to quickly changing conditions.
Get an SMS on your phone or use GPRS and pull down the latest version of the program without even stopping it or restarting it.
The WindowsCE VM is fully jitting.
Question: Impact on battery life? Battery is not particularly effected by Smalltalk. The size of the battery is still the impact of the battery's life.
Question: How much effort is required to speeding it up? Compared to regular PC's the device is in the order of early pentium timeframe. So you need to target your code towards that kind of computer speed.
Question: What about the right button on a mouse? The devices have their own special ways to do that. Holding the pen down.. holding a different button down, etc.
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