Abora / News: Recent posts

This release is focused on packaging up the modest progress made
towards the execution of the Udanax-Gold testing classes on the Java
translated code. The author has gained access to some of the Udanax
trace logs from successful runs of the Tester classes which has
allowed a significant improvement in the correctness of the generated
code. In addition some progress has been made on the missing disk API.
The current "blocker" is the use of the Smalltalk become operation,
which is used in both the persistence mechanism, and the core Ent data
structure. The java Proxy class mechanism appears to allow one way
around this.... read more

This release reaches the significant milestone of generating Java source code that can be compiled without error. In addition most of the Tester test classes supplied with UdanaxGold can now be run without an exception being generated, though the accuracy of the results is still suspect until they can be checked against the unreleased trace logs from Udanax.

The generated Abora-Gold Java code is still a long way from being considered a framework to be used by others. The translator is also suffering from a severe case of overgrown-prototype syndrome. But, things are definitely going in the right direction now, after being lost for months wading through compilation errors in generated Java code!

A translator for the Smalltalk source code of the open-source Udanax-Gold project into Java code. The resulting translated Java code I name Abora-Gold. The translator has been written from scratch in Java, since the original udanax converter into C++ does not seem to have been released.

This release continues on further work at automatically converting more of the source. The number of compilation errors has been reduced from about 7800 down to 917. There is still some way to go before being compilation error free, but this is good progress.... read more

Notes:
The Abora-White sub-project is a Java implementation of the
Udanax-Gold server that has been auto-translated from the original
Smalltalk, and then manually converted for a better fit with the Java
world.

The aim is to get some useful subset of the Udanax-Gold server
running, and to end up with a code base that as much as possible will
provide a base from which other developers can call from their
applications or even build on. To help with this, efforts are being
expended on; reasonable JavaDoc and overview documents, JUnit test
cases, and simple example applications.... read more

Release Name: 20030217

Notes:
The Abora-White sub-project is a Java implementation of the
Udanax-Gold server that has been auto-translated from the original
Smalltalk, and then manually converted for a better fit with the Java
world.

The aim is to get some useful subset of the Udanax-Gold server
running, and to end up with a code base that as much as possible
will provide a base from which other developers can call from their
applications or even build on. To help with this, efforts are being
expended on; reasonable JavaDoc and overview documents, JUnit
test cases, and simple example applications.... read more

Release Name: 20030216

Notes:
Udanax-Gold2Java is a simple auto-translator between
the Udanax-Gold Smalltalk source, as released by XOC,
into approximate Java. There will be 1000's of
compilation problems afterwards. See Abora-White
project for the start of a working Java implementation
based on Udanax-Gold.

Includes:
-Original XOC source from a few locations
-Translator program
-Abora-Gold holds auto-translation results plus missing class placeholders
-JavaDoc generated from Abora-Gold... read more

Simple automatic translator for Udanax-Gold Smalltalk source into approximate Java. There will be LOTS of compilation problems with the result and so can't be run, but may prove useful for educational purposes.

The original Udanax-Gold source is included plus some additional associated Smalltalk and C++ source found elsewhere on the web.

The results of the translation are added to an Abora-Gold project that also includes some hand created missing classes place-holders.

Since the Christmas holidays I have put the Dolphin demo aside and continued with an earlier work of translating the Udanax-Gold Smalltalk source into Java. Depending on how this goes over the next few weeks, I am hoping to either use this as a base for a new version of the Abora server, or attempt to import the Coordinate Space and Ent features into a Java version of my previous Dolphin server.

The translation is working from Udanax-Gold source code gained from a few sources; Typed Smalltalk directly from XOC and via Les Tyrell plus some of the C++ code from Jeff Rush's CVS server. Even with this patchwork of sources, I am still misses a number of classes. I have a home grown translator that converts the Smalltalk into approximate Java, to which I am gradually adding knowledge of the Gold programming techniques. Even with the translator I am expecting a lot of manual work will be required to finish off a first pass with minimal compilation problems. The C++ code I am copying and hand tweaking. I will be creating JUnit tests as I start investigating the resulting code.... read more

Abora is an ongoing project to create a hypertext system based on a xanalogical structure.

As the project is a few months old I thought it was about time to move it from the obscurity of my personal web pages and onto Sourceforge. Hopefully over the next few months as the project becomes more interesting to others, the features of SF might help to create a community around it. Eventually of course Abora should become self hosted :-) ... read more