"I have a mind like a steel... uh... thingy." Patrick Logan's weblog.

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Wednesday, April 28, 2004

For Camp Smalltalk

In a message to the Camp Smalltalk list I wrote...

I'm interested in learning Seaside. Additionally, I've been wanting to learn Mozilla/XUL, and how it is different from HTML.

Here's a bit more of what's been forming in my mind...

  • I implemented a "Naked Objects" like system in Jython and SWT, late at night, a couple hours at a time. A Naked Objects user interface is non-modal.
  • I'm ultimately interested in something like the "Object Lens" which is kind of an enhanced Naked Objects.
  • Related to this is the Haystack system, which also makes interesting use of continuations for "rich" user interfaces. These kinds of continuations could allow a NakedObjects GUI to be "end user customized" into a more "task-oriented" user interface without much scripting, if any at all.
  • Smalltalk is a good platform for something like the Object Lens.
  • Seaside might be a good platform for something like Haystack's particular use of continuations, which granted is not as intensive as with HTML but at least as interesting.
  • XUL might be a good platform for user interfaces for these kinds of systems because the interaction is "rich" and yet these systems still use a relatively fixed set of interactions. The Javascript could be canned at design time and downloaded from the Smalltalk server.
  • Mozilla does support extensible scripting via XPCOM (Cross-platform Component Object Model). Javascript is the default, but there is a Python binding. Smalltalk could be a good candidate too.
I write hardly any code anymore, hardly any for the last few years. This summer I'll spend a week at Camp Smalltalk, which might be a good chunk of time to march somewhere down this list, whether or not someone wants to join in on my specific agenda. Certainly that'll be more time than I piece-mealed into the Jython code last year.

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Portland, Oregon, United States
I'm usually writing from my favorite location on the planet, the pacific northwest of the u.s. I write for myself only and unless otherwise specified my posts here should not be taken as representing an official position of my employer. Contact me at my gee mail account, username patrickdlogan.