The Weblog of Peter Ahé

Gilad just announced that we will open source Newspeak using the Apache 2.0 license. Notice that the announcement is that we will open source Newspeak; we need to audit the sources before we can release it.

Please don’t answer this poll.

Last week, I said that instance variables are public in Smalltalk. That is not the case. I got confused because we are working on an improved version of Smalltalk and because of representation independent code, instance variables are public until we add a general mechanism for declaring non-public methods.

My point that Squeak (and Smalltalk) are not good examples for API design remains valid, however.

Just found some cool features on my Macbook. The trackpad has a lot of nifty gestures, for example, you can scroll if you use two fingers on the trackpad. An additional cool feature is the zoom function. Hold control down will scrolling and you zoom in on part of the desktop. This is really useful when doing a demo.

To enable this, go to System Preferences and select Keyboard & Mouse. Then select the Trackpad tab.

The zoom feature is also available for desktop Macs (Mac mini, iMac, etc). You can find the preference setting in the Mouse tab. You need a mouse with a scroll wheel or similar.

Today was my second day at Cadence. Besides getting into some good Squeak hacking, I tried reading my corporate email trough Outlook which came preconfigured on my company laptop. I’ll refrain from commenting on this experience and just note that this entry is written from my new Macbook; I simply had to get one. Now, that’s pure sweetness!

It turns out that some emails to my personal account have been rejected by a too aggressive SPAM filter. That problem is corrected now. If you suspect that I may not have seen your email, please resend.

Today is my last day at Sun. It has been a blast. I’m joining Gilad to make a better Smalltalk.

Digital-sushi? Most people in the States can’t pronounce my last name and make it sound like a piece of sushi. Thanks to Sarah Gafter and Brian Goetz for coming up with this name.

Click on the picture for a larger version (and to reveal my e-mail address).

If you want to contact me, send me an email. The address is on the business card