[Martenlist] Re: Updates?

[Jack Small]

Luis,

On Jun 23, 2006, at 6:30 PM, Luis wrote:

> I've been out of action for a little while, little problemo with  
> domain migration a email shenanigans.

Sounds a lot like my summer so far!

> Well, updates are good, however small, it keeps our faith in the  
> company buoyant. Considering the past with Prograph, it's  
> 'kinder' (heh...) if we still think things are happening at your end!.

LOL.  I totally know the feeling.

Prograph will not only survive the Intel transition, but I believe it  
will be uniquely positioned to offer capabilities that are simply not  
possible in other languages.

We are taking our time to make sure that the Marten Engine is as  
robust and reliable on the Intel as it has proven to be on the PPC.   
We are beyond excited about the future of Marten!

I'd also like to add, as a long-timer myself, that this sort of  
transition is exactly the reason Scott and I took on this challenge  
in the first place.  Prograph never survived any transitions in a  
fully functional way, I believe, because the people making the  
decisions did not understand the nature of the changes.  This current  
change is an excellent example:  new machines, line-by-line reviews  
of all 22 related projects, Rosette and Intel dimensions added to  
testing... the list just goes on and on.  Did I mention that we have  
our own development plans? Everything has changed at least a little.   
The costs to adapt are non-trivial, but I know the language will profit.

So, for a little while, our pattern of regular updates will be  
interrupted.  Things are happening, though!

> Hey yeah, the icons, it's like asking if anyone has seen your  
> glasses but then realise you've been wearing them on your head all  
> the time.
> Whoever that mysterious user is deserves a medal, now that's truly  
> visual!

I could not agree more.  It's been on my other things to do list  
since day one, but that's a real long list.  I added 65 "adornment"  
icons to menus and window proxies and it makes an overwhelming  
difference.

There is a special place in my inbox for IDE UI requests.  Please be  
as specific as possible!

> I suppose a month is good enough a time lag to to.... to... Appware  
> reminder! Guys, if you've got a beta anywhere I'd gladly test, and  
> criticise it <cough> offer a different perspective as the thing  
> progresses. I can, honest, I can play the dumb user (on demand,  
> It's a skill. I have to remind myself...) and see what can be done  
> with it.

Speaking for myself, "Appware" is an emergent property of the  
Prograph language.  But I could go on all day...

> Will you be abstracting out OS features or encapsulating  
> methodologies? (Translation: Will this be a level up from the  
> current marten platform or will you be creating containers for  
> 'processes'?).

I would have to say we are doing both.  In my experience, neither  
"pure" philosophy really works in real life.  Since they are not  
mutually exclusive, why not leverage their benefits?

> Please say you're also thinking of web functionality, as this is  
> very critical these days.

Yes I'm doing a lot more than thinking.  If anybody has a favorite  
web service API you'd like to use please let me know.

> Well, if anything I don't mind being the reminder to remind you to  
> keep us updated. If you want reminding that is: Just remind me and  
> I'll remind you (note to self: Go to bed earlier).

Hey I love it.  Keep 'em coming!

More later,
Jack



> On 27 May 2006, at 14:36, Tech Support wrote:
>
>> Luis:
>>
>> Always good to hear from you.  I apologize, the status updates  
>> have been few and far between this month.
>>
>> But, that does not mean we have been idle.  To whet your appetite  
>> while waiting for Marten 1.4 (the Mac Intel) version, I have put  
>> Marten_056.00g006 in the user download area for everyone to try out.
>>
>> One user pointed out that we forgot to put icons in the menu  
>> items!  It is funny how we overlooked that; we are simply too  
>> close to the project sometimes.  So Jack has worked hard to create  
>> icons, proxy icons, and various other improvements, and  
>> Marten_056.00g006 is the beta version of all this.  Please let us  
>> know if you find any bugs.
>>
>> In other news, Jack has been working very hard on a better MVPC  
>> framework and we hope to move the Marten code base over to it in  
>> the near future.  It will make incorporating scripting, undo, etc.  
>> much easier.
>>
>> On my end, I am still plugging away at the Mac Intel version.  It  
>> has been complicated by my trip schedule but I hope to put more  
>> time into it next week.  Here is the status.  The big changes  
>> needed for Intel are twofold.  The first is byte swapping since we  
>> store our objects directly (what is in memory is written directly  
>> to the disk).  The byte swapping for objects is in and appears to  
>> work correctly, so that is done for now (we'll sign off after more  
>> testing).  The second big change is the platform-specific  
>> assembly.  The most important aspect of that is the ability to  
>> execute external procedures "natively".  The assembly for this is  
>> almost done.  The only thing lacking is function calling when a  
>> structure is either a parameter or a return value.  It turns out  
>> that Intel switches the calling protocol depending on the size of  
>> the structure so we have to put in a runtime dictionary lookup to  
>> get that size before the stack can be set up.  I admit to a  
>> certain fatigue in dealing with this but I hope to get it done by  
>> the end of next week.
>>
>> After that, the next most important work is getting the callbacks  
>> to work.  This will take roughly two weeks, so realistically we  
>> are looking now at mid-to-late June for the first Intel betas.
>>
>> As to Appware, that is on hold until Marten 1.4 is out the door.   
>> We are working on new frameworks (both MVPC and SAC) and the  
>> Appware "editor" will take advantage of those; so there is a bit  
>> of work to be done before something is available.  We will keep  
>> everyone posted on our progress but we appreciate the occasional  
>> reminder to do so.  Thanks.
>>
>> Scott Anderson
>> Andescotia
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On May 25, 2006, at 6:54 PM, Luis wrote:
>>
>>> Hiya,
>>>
>>> Where's all the list activity gone? Any updates on the Appware/ 
>>> Microbrew thingy?
>>>
>>> Hello...
>>>      echo...
>>>         echo...
>>>            echo...
>>>
>>>
>>> Cheers,
>>>
>>> Luis.
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>
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