New Website!

We have a new website and a new logo for our community. Go Smalltalk!

Smalltalk was designed for Kids!

Yes! Alan Kay was trying to develop an environment to be used in the education of our kids.

Did you Know that Smalltalk was created in 70's at Xerox?

The use of the mouse, the "copy and paste", the bitblt and others technologies was firstly created in Smalltalk. Steve Jobs saw those ideas at Xerox and he developed a new language, Objective-C.

Mailing List in Spanish!

Please, go to http://groups.google.com/group/clubsmalltalk and join us!

August 23, 2009

Smalltalks 2009 Coding Contest

Welcome to Smalltalks 2009 Coding Contest!

This contest is organized in the context of the Smalltalks 2009 International Conference, to be held in Buenos Aires. It is also possible to participate in the contest remotely.
A discussion forum has been created for participants to share their experiences, make comments for developers, exchange information and of course download game versions and instructions: http://groups.google.com.ar/group/smalltalks-2009-coding-contest

Story, Motivation and Setting

Who has never heard the call of adventure? Who has never dreamed of riding dragons or unicorns, with the breeze stroking your face? Who has never longed to wield a broadsword, or to cast a powerful spell on an evil enemy? The clashing of forged metal against shield, magic sparkling in the air and at your fingertips, fantasy creatures, marvellous settings, quests and adventures...

Human fantasy is full of such things. Fairy stories, epic poetry, folklore, mythology and - latterly - novels, short stories, movies and TV series. Much more recently, video and computer games. The Internet, too, is now full of fantasy games where imaginary characters may "live" and have adventures in virtual worlds. This is what our coding contest is about this year: a (very schematic) epic fantasy game.

Be welcome to participate and have fun with this interesting challenge. Programming a game of this kind requires a great deal of effort; it is not finished yet and your comments and suggestions will surely come in handy.

Smalltalks 2009 Organization Committee

Smalltalks 2009 - Argentina's third Smalltalk conference

Argentina's third Smalltalk conference, Smalltalks 2009, will be held from November 19th through November 21rd at the Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales (FCEyN), Universidad de Buenos Aires (UBA). All those connected with Smalltalk, be it faculty, students, researchers, developers or entrepreneurs, are invited to participate, free of cost, as presenters and members of the audience. The organization committee will announce the registration website shortly.
The conference's goal is to gather both the Argentine and International Smalltalk community to get connected sharing our work and experience with regards to Smalltalk or related topics. Smalltalks 2009 presentations will be divided between the "Industry and Development" and "Research and Education" categories. In addition, the event will host a Smalltalk programming contest. As in other editions, well known personalities from the international community will attend the conference.
The "Research and Education" category is the best match for research and education work done with Smalltalk in universities and public or private entities. The "Industry and Development" category is suitable for presentations related to Smalltalk software developed by companies or individuals, both public and private.

A list of suggested presentation topics, not exclusive, is below:
  • Development tools.
  • Development with prototypes.
  • Model driven development.
  • Agile practices (XP, TDD, etc).
  • Web application development.
  • Metamodeling / metaprogramming.
  • New frameworks or models.
  • Materials for education.
  • Embedded systems and robotics.
  • SOA and web services.
  • Experience reports, both development and research.
  • Commercial systems.
  • Automation and best testing practices.
  • Interoperability with other technologies.
  • Best design and architecture practices.

Interested presenters should keep in mind the following deadline schedule:
  1. You must present a summary of the proposed presentation no later than Monday, October 19th, 2009. The summary must fit on a single page, and must include a description, objective, and category of the work to be shown. The submission procedure will be announced shortly.
  2. The conference's program committee will select the event's presentations from the proposals submitted according to the above procedure by Monday, October 26th. The proposals including dynamic examples as opposed to just static presentations will be given priority.
  3. The conference schedule will be published in the conference's website on Wednesday, October 28th.
  4. The conference's works and presentations will be published in the conference's website after the conference.
Those interested in the coding contest can become familiarized with it at the smalltalks-2009-coding-contest Google group: smalltalks-2009-coding-contest@googlegroups.com. The contest's goal is to have a good time solving a problem in Smalltalk, and win a prize while at it. We are working hard to ensure everyone can participate, and we will show examples and prototypes that can be improved by the participants.

For directions to FCEyN, you can go to the computer science department's web site: http://dc.uba.ar
Feel free to share this invitation with those who might be interested. If you have any questions, send us an email at fundacion.smalltalk@gmail.com

See you at the conference!
Smalltalks 2009 Organization Committee.

August 16, 2009

New Smalltalk book by Andres Valloud

Andrés Valloud has released a new book called Fundamentals of Smalltalk Programming Technique, volumen 1. Congratulations Andrés!
The Book is divided in two volumes, illustrates programming techniques every Smalltalk developer should master. The thorough treatment also describes the method to efficiently develop new skills, and exemplifies valuable lessons learned over more than a decade of experience.

Here is the link to buy it http://www.lulu.com/content/7451511.