In the previous post I briefly mentioned the new feature of the PackageLoader that went into the development version of GNU Smalltalk. Today I am going show a usage of it.

GNU Smalltalk has a database abstraction called DBI and multiple backends (MySQL, SQLite and PostgreSQL). In general I am using the SQLite backend to develop my application and depending on the users (e.g. do I need concurrent access) I will move to PostgreSQL. When moving my new application to PostgreSQL the import of data failed and this was due some issues with the conversion of Smalltalk types to PostgreSQL.

GNU Smalltalk has the concept of packages for a long time. By default the gst-package application will read an XML file and then create a ZIP archive. This package format is called a Star archive in GNU Smalltalk.

When developing it is easier to just load the package from the filesystem and this is why we now have the above PackageLoader>>#loadPackageFromFile:.

I am using Iliad for the configuration of my GSM Basestation (another blog entry will follow) and the response time has not been that great when showing a lightbox (e.g. the one from todolist example). I wanted to see where Iliad is spending the time and potentially improve the performance of either GNU Smalltalk or Iliad.

In the last two years I have developed some Smalltalk packages that help me with (mobile) communication related tasks and I began making them available for Pharo as well. I'm using the gst-convert utility to do the conversion and the goal is to have this work as automatically as possible.

• OsmoLogging is another logging framework modeled after the framework we developed for C. Besides having multiple backends (Transcript, syslog) and log levels there are some unique features.

About a month ago, I released GNU sed version 4.2.2 and included in the release a "rant" (more of a criticism, perhaps—I'm not a native speaker) about the state of the GNU project.

I made it clear that I had no philosophical disagreement with FSF; in fact, that's likely the reason why almost no one took my post as an occasion to attack the FSF and Richard Stallman. To the few that did: guys, you clearly missed the point. I wrote that text because I want free software and the FSF to be successful. My concern is that if GNU loses, the FSF loses—even if some other piece of free software happens to win.