Dear smalltalkers, phratchers and everybody interested to help Phratch development.
We need you as an international community. Phratch needs your help to be multilingual.

The most of work is already done, It is based on the Scratch work (Thank you for all the supported languages). Now, as Phratch has a lot of new features, we need to translate each of these new features.

For each of the following languages (ar, bg, ca, cs, da, de, el, es, et, eu, fa, fi, fr_CA, gl, he, hr, ht, hu, id, is, it, ja_hira, ja, kn, ko, lt, mk, mn, mr, ms, ne, nl, no, pl, pt_br, pt, ro, ru, rw, sk, sl, sv, th, tr, uk, vi, zh_cn, zh_tw), we need to complete the lines available in the phratch issue tracker (https://code.google.com/p/phratch/issues/detail?id=120). You can post your work as a comment or send me a mail, I will then integrate it in Phratch.

For each expression there is a msgid in english, that should not be changed. Then, there is a msgstr that should be complete in the specific language. All elements in the $$ (like $Number$) are variables, they should not be changed but they have to be integrated in your translation. For example, in french:
===
msgid “replace costume $Number$ with $NewCostume$”
msgstr “remplacer le costume $Number$ avec $NewCostume$”
===

There is less than 130 small expressions. It is 1 or 2 hours of work, and it helps us a lot.

Thank you for your help.

Do you know Lego MindStorms ? The last one is the Ev3 serie (http://www.lego.com/fr-fr/mindstorms/). One particularity of this version compared to the previous ones is the possibility to plug a Wifi key and connect via TCP.

So, if you have this material (one Mindstorms Ev3, one compatible Wifi key), you can control your robot with Pharo !

Just load these lines:

Gofer it
     url: 'http://smalltalkhub.com/mc/JLaval/JetStorm/main'      username: ''
     password: '';
     package: 'ConfigurationOfJetStorm';
     load.
(Smalltalk at: #ConfigurationOfJetStorm) loadBleedingEdge.

I know also that for Christmas, it is not possible to learn a new API, we all have a lot of other things to do ! So, you can play with it into Phratch.

For that, just load Phratch and the package EV3Phratch as follow.

Gofer it
       url: 'http://smalltalkhub.com/mc/JLaval/Phratch/main'        username: ''
       password: '';
       package: 'ConfigurationOfPhratch';
       load.
(Smalltalk at: #ConfigurationOfPhratch) loadBleedingEdge.
Gofer it
       url: 'http://smalltalkhub.com/mc/JLaval/JetStorm/main'        username: ''
       password: '';
       package: 'EV3Phratch';
       load.

Have fun !

I continue to develop Phratch, the port of Scratch in Pharo. Phratch is a visual programming language on top of Pharo.

There are lots of new features:

  • Settings
  • FileSystems
  • Metacello
  • integration of BYOB (allows to build your own blocks)
  • integration of Color and Files
  • a lot of new useful blocks
  • projects saved with Fuel
  • possibility to implement new features without modifying the core of the system
  • possibility to customize the environment: add new categories, add new kinds of Sprite, add new blocks.

Phratch is available for Pharo2.0 with the following configuration:

Gofer it 
    url: 'http://smalltalkhub.com/mc/JLaval/Phratch/main'
    username: '' 
    password: ''; 
    package: 'ConfigurationOfPhratch';
    load.
((Smalltalk at: #ConfigurationOfPhratch) project version: '1.0') load.
(Smalltalk at: #PhratchFrameMorph) open perform: #saveImageForEndUserSilently.

I hope to write documentations about all of the new features asap.

 

In this post, I will explain how to install Phratch on an Android device. I created the .apk file for an ARM architecture. The following instructions are based on this page.

Prerequirements:
  • Download Android SDK: http://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html
  • Ant should be installed: http://ant.apache.org/
Image preparation:

First, download  a Pharo 2.0 image and execute the following code. It loads the necessary code for Android support and the Phratch package. Deprecation raiseWarning: false; showWarning: false.

"Installation of Android support"
Gofer new
 url: 'http://source.squeak.org/VMMaker';
 package: 'Android-Base';
 load.
SmalltalkImage checkSourcesFileAvailability: false.
SmalltalkImage checkChangesFileAvailability: false.
"2 - installation of Phratch"
Gofer it
 url: 'http://smalltalkhub.com/mc/JLaval/Phratch/main'
 username: ''
 password: '';
 package: 'ConfigurationOfPhratch';
 load.
(Smalltalk at: #ConfigurationOfPhratch) loadBleedingEdge.

Then, you can execute the following lines that makes Phratch be in User mode:

StartupLoader default removeAllScriptsFromAllDirectories; initialize.
PhratchFrameMorph open saveImageForEndUserSilently.
Image splitting

Now, split your image:

split -d -b 1m /path/to/myapplication.image myapplication.

In macosX, the option -d does not exist. It means that you should remove it and rename all created files with extensions as .00, .01, .02, …

Creation of the Android project

Create a new folder for the project. Inside it, unzip the makevm.zip (https://ci.inria.fr/pharo-contribution/view/VM/job/CogDroid/).
Go inside the dir, and, inside it, unzip the nativeVM-xxx.zip (https://ci.inria.fr/pharo-contribution/view/VM/job/CogDroid/). I use the arm file.

Then do

 mkdir -p src/phratch/eu/android

Then create a .java file in src/phratch/eu/android/Phratch.java, which contains:

package phratch.eu.android;
 import org.golubovsky.cogstack.CogActivity;
 public class Phratch extends CogActivity {
 }

In assets/image, push the image splitted file (files with extension .00, .01, …), and run:

ls -l assets/image/

Make sure subdirectory assets/zipped exists. From https://code.google.com/p/phratch/downloads/list, download in this folder the files ScratchSkin.zip, Manual.zip, locale.zip, Media.zip, and Help.zip.

Customize of the Android project

Now, comes the need to change files. Go back in the makevm folder.

In AndroidManifest.xml

  • change @@PACKAGE@@ by “phratch.eu.android”
  • change @@ACTIVITY@@ by “Phratch”

In build.xml

  • change @@BUILD@@ by “Phratch-android”

In res/values/strings.xml

  • change @@BUILD@@ by Phratch-android

In local.properties

  • change the line sdk.dir by the full path of your sdk, mine is sdk.dir=/Users/janniklaval/Desktop/phratch-and/makevm/sdk

In project.properties, change the two following lines:

  • target=android-4
  • android.library.reference.1=../../project/

by

  • target=android-17
  • android.library.reference.1=project/

In project/local.properties

  • change the line sdk.dir by the full path of your sdk, mine is sdk.dir=/Users/janniklaval/Desktop/phratch-and/makevm/sdk

In project/project.properties, change the following line:

  • target=android-4

by

  • target=android-17

In res/drawable/, you can replace icons.

Finish the creation of the .apk

Run the commands:

 ant clean
 ant debug

You can run

 ant release

The installable apk file will be under bin: Phratch-android-debug.apk.

Deep into Pharo is the second volume of a series of books covering Pharo. Whereas the first volume is intended for newcomers, this second volume covers deeper topics.

External Page: cover.min.jpg

TopicsYou will learn about Pharo frameworks and libraries such as Glamour, PetitParser, Roassal, FileSystem, Regex, and Socket.
You will explore the language with chapters on exceptions, blocks, small integers, and floats.
You will discover tools such as profilers, Metacello and Gofer.

http://rmod.lille.inria.fr/pbe2/

You can contribute to Phratch by several ways.

  • First of all, you can download it and try it. If you have any problem or bug, you can add an issue in the bug tracker.
  • Then, if you are a Smalltalk developper, you can easily contribute to fix these bugs.
  • Another way to contribute is to make documentation for Phratch. Some posts are already available here.
  • You can also extend Phratch with your own blocks. Do not hesitate to share with us your productions.

To download the lastest version of Phratch, just follow the instructions.

Phratch is a programming language that makes it easy to create your own interactive stories, animations, games, music, and art — and share your creations on the web. It is a port of Scratch (http://scratch.mit.edu/) on recent platforms (Phrao 2.0 and Pharo 3.0)

More than Scratch, Phratch includes BYOB, Build your own Blocks (http://byob.berkeley.edu/#download). It allows one to create a block composed by other blocks. Creating a block is available in the category variables below the creation of variable and creation of list. Then, It is possible to edit the block by right clicking.
Phratch is also Panther: It includes two interesting categories: Files and colors. Files allows one to manipulate local and remote files, and Colors to manipulate color features.

Phratch includes new features like Settings, FileSystem, Metacello. For example, I can edit a normal block, and a real browser is opened.

A block is a smalltalk method containing a pragma. This pragma informs Phratch that this method should be displayed as a block. A lot of Blocks are provided by default: from Scratch but also a lots of them comes from BYOB, and Panther.

You can find Phratch and tutorials at code.google.com/p/phratch.

Location: Mines de Douai and ENSTA Brest (France)

Advisor and contacts:
Noury Bouraqadi, Luc Fabresse, Jannik Laval (car _at_ mines-douai.fr, website: http://car.mines-douai.fr/)
Loïc Lagadec (loic.lagadec _at_ ensta-bretagne.fr)

Profile: the candidate must hold a recent Master of Science degree in Computer Science or Software Engineering and must have solid skills in dynamic reflective language and OOP.

Description of the work:
The goal of this PhD is to study Smalltalk integration with FPGAs for robotic applications. This integration will enable us get the best from both worlds. Developers are provided with a high-level dynamic reflective language (Smalltalk) for building and debugging their applications. Still, we can have high performances by projecting part of the programs into FPGAs. These reconfigurable hardware chips can achieve performance faster than C programs, while consuming much less energy.

The work to do can decompose into the following tasks:
-Build reference robotic applications fully in Pharo Smalltalk using actual robots (see http://car.mines-douai.fr/robots/)
-Analyze these applications to identify critical parts to project on FPGAs to significantly increase performances (speed, energy)
-Do the actual projection to FPGA and evaluate performances of the transformed applications
-Generalize the approach and define a methodology for turning Smalltalk code into FPGA
-Propose a solution to automate the methodology

The Ph.D student will receive a grant which net amount is approximately 1420 euros per month for 3 years (36 months).
He will be co-supervised by Loïc Lagadec from the ENSTA-Bretagne (Lab-STICC, Brest) and Jannik Laval, Luc Fabresse and Noury Bouraqadi from Ecole des Mines de Douai (CAR, http://car.mines-douai.fr/).
The first 18th month will be spent in Douai (Lille area), while the last half of the PhD will be spent in Brest.
However, during the full 3 years, there will be a strong interaction with co-supervisers from both labs.

Bibliography:
-A Robust Layered Control System For A Mobile Robot. R. Brooks. IEEE Journal of Robotics and Automation. Vol. 2. Num 1. March, 1985.
-RCS: A Cognitive Architecture for Intelligent MultiAgent Systems. J.S. Albus and A. J. Barbera. Proceedings of the 5th IFAC/EURON Symposium on Intelligent Autonomous Vehicles (IAV 2004). Lisbon, Portugal, 2004.
-Handbook of Robotics. Bruno Siciliano and Oussama Khatib editors. Springer. 2008.
-Multi-Level Simulation of Heterogeneous Reconfigurable Platforms. D. Picard and L. Lagadec. International Journal of Reconfigurable Computing. 2012.
-High-level synthesis for FPGAs: From Prototyping to Deployment. Jason cong and stephen neuendorffer and juanjo noguera and kees vissers and zhiru zhang. IEEE Transactions on Computer-aided design of integrated circuits and systems. Vol. 30. Num 4. April, 2011.
-The MOLEN Polymorphic Processor. S. Vassiliadis and S. Wong and G. Gaydadjiev and K. Bertels and G. Kuzmanov and E. Moscu Panainte. IEEE Transactions on Computers. 2004.