Smalltalk - Pt. II

Author

Pt. II - Continued

devmail@runbox.com

2005-01-21, 4:01 am

90% of what I intend to do now and in the future is write web
applications that perform regular business processes (groupware, loan
processing, accounting, etc.), but I also want to be able to write
desktop applications (w/ GUI) using the chosen language. Boring stuff
to a computer scientist, probably, but I'm a former business
professor who became a business drone.

Smalltalk probably has the advantage for these types of apps, yes?

One of the applications will be doing natural language processing on
RSS feeds, Bloomberg terminal feeds, and Usenet postings, etc.

[For everyone who is so interested: It is essentially an application
to combat fraud in the equities markets, and based on govt. funded
research completed while I was at university studying to be a
pointy-haired boss. The primary focus is on fraudulent trade patterns,
but the NLP component would be used to find instances of stock kiting
and shilling that run afoul of investment laws. It would also be used
to find hidden risks in investment syndicates, whether formal or
informal. For example: The failure of the LTCM hedge fund was such a
huge risk to our economic system, in part, because so many of the
investment banks that cleared the LTCM trades were parroting the LTCM
trades. The banks were in awe of the Nobel-prize winning guys that
worked for LTCM..."they're brilliant, so if I do the exact same
thing, I'll look brilliant too!" The risks for the economic system
increased exponentially because of the domino effect of everyone
throwing their weight behind the same trades. One unforeseen
circumstance and everyone gets wiped out...then they had to be bailed
out by the government because it would drag the economy down the
toilet, otherwise. Your tax dollars at work.]

The NLP stuff just needs to be completed overnight, I guess in a
batch-type format...not simultaneously. I'm very interested in
learning more about what Bulent Murtezaoflu was saying about various
approaches and hardware requirements for this type of task.

I'm also interested in creating (relatively simple) expert and
agent-based systems for our company. Lisp probably has the advantage
for these types of apps, yes?

CDX

2005-01-21, 4:00 pm

I notice that you are considering integrating with Bloomberg. Should you
go that route, I can help you out. I've set up several interfaces to the
Bloomberg API and Datalicense products. One of these is a real-time
price reader.

Chip
(should you like to contact me, please use cdy@diNOSPAMcehome.com.
Remove the capital letters)

devmail@runbox.com wrote:
> 90% of what I intend to do now and in the future is write web
> applications that perform regular business processes (groupware, loan
> processing, accounting, etc.), but I also want to be able to write
> desktop applications (w/ GUI) using the chosen language. Boring stuff
> to a computer scientist, probably, but I'm a former business
> professor who became a business drone.
>
> Smalltalk probably has the advantage for these types of apps, yes?
>
> One of the applications will be doing natural language processing on
> RSS feeds, Bloomberg terminal feeds, and Usenet postings, etc.
>
> [For everyone who is so interested: It is essentially an application
> to combat fraud in the equities markets, and based on govt. funded
> research completed while I was at university studying to be a
> pointy-haired boss. The primary focus is on fraudulent trade patterns,
> but the NLP component would be used to find instances of stock kiting
> and shilling that run afoul of investment laws. It would also be used
> to find hidden risks in investment syndicates, whether formal or
> informal. For example: The failure of the LTCM hedge fund was such a
> huge risk to our economic system, in part, because so many of the
> investment banks that cleared the LTCM trades were parroting the LTCM
> trades. The banks were in awe of the Nobel-prize winning guys that
> worked for LTCM..."they're brilliant, so if I do the exact same
> thing, I'll look brilliant too!" The risks for the economic system
> increased exponentially because of the domino effect of everyone
> throwing their weight behind the same trades. One unforeseen
> circumstance and everyone gets wiped out...then they had to be bailed
> out by the government because it would drag the economy down the
> toilet, otherwise. Your tax dollars at work.]
>
> The NLP stuff just needs to be completed overnight, I guess in a
> batch-type format...not simultaneously. I'm very interested in
> learning more about what Bulent Murtezaoflu was saying about various
> approaches and hardware requirements for this type of task.
>
> I'm also interested in creating (relatively simple) expert and
> agent-based systems for our company. Lisp probably has the advantage
> for these types of apps, yes?
>

Rowan Bunning

2005-01-25, 3:58 am

devmail@runbox.com wrote:
> 90% of what I intend to do now and in the future is write web
> applications that perform regular business processes (groupware, loan
> processing, accounting, etc.), but I also want to be able to write
> desktop applications (w/ GUI) using the chosen language. Boring stuff
> to a computer scientist, probably, but I'm a former business
> professor who became a business drone.
>
> Smalltalk probably has the advantage for these types of apps, yes?

Yes. Smalltalk pioneered the GUI (inc. MVC) and has always been strong
in that area. Some current innovations in the VisualWorks world make the
future look particularly bright IMO (but I may be somewhat biased here).

Developing *once only* to create both GUI and web application is a big
advantage that we are working towards facilitating with the 'WithStyle'
UI technology which is currently under development.

In a nutshell, the architecture is similar to that of web applications
except that when the WithStyle client is in use, Smalltalk logic can be
delivered to the client and more advanced Smalltalk widgets can
declaritively defined in XML to enable sorting, drag-drop etc. WithStyle
accepts XML (including XHTML, mixed namespace XML and Smalltalk scripts)
and styles it using CSS. WithStyle4 which is currently at an embryonic
stage will allow you to mix editible XML content with VisualWorks' new
GUI widgets (known as 'Pollock'). The VW browser plugin offers delivery
options via conventional web browsers.

We believe that this will offer the Smalltalk community some fairly
unique possiblities for skinnable, hybrid UIs that cross the current
divide between web apps and desktop apps whilst sticking with open
standards and the runtime flexibility of Smalltalk.

We hope to have some new information up at www.softwarewithstyle.com
fairly soon. If there is any particular information you are interested
in, please let us know.

Rowan
Software WithStyle

>
> One of the applications will be doing natural language processing on
> RSS feeds, Bloomberg terminal feeds, and Usenet postings, etc.
>
> [For everyone who is so interested: It is essentially an application
> to combat fraud in the equities markets, and based on govt. funded
> research completed while I was at university studying to be a
> pointy-haired boss. The primary focus is on fraudulent trade patterns,
> but the NLP component would be used to find instances of stock kiting
> and shilling that run afoul of investment laws. It would also be used
> to find hidden risks in investment syndicates, whether formal or
> informal. For example: The failure of the LTCM hedge fund was such a
> huge risk to our economic system, in part, because so many of the
> investment banks that cleared the LTCM trades were parroting the LTCM
> trades. The banks were in awe of the Nobel-prize winning guys that
> worked for LTCM..."they're brilliant, so if I do the exact same
> thing, I'll look brilliant too!" The risks for the economic system
> increased exponentially because of the domino effect of everyone
> throwing their weight behind the same trades. One unforeseen
> circumstance and everyone gets wiped out...then they had to be bailed
> out by the government because it would drag the economy down the
> toilet, otherwise. Your tax dollars at work.]
>
> The NLP stuff just needs to be completed overnight, I guess in a
> batch-type format...not simultaneously. I'm very interested in
> learning more about what Bulent Murtezaoflu was saying about various
> approaches and hardware requirements for this type of task.
>
> I'm also interested in creating (relatively simple) expert and
> agent-based systems for our company. Lisp probably has the advantage
> for these types of apps, yes?
>

2005-01-25, 3:58 am

On Tue, 25 Jan 2005 15:04:44 +1100, Rowan Bunning wrote:

> We believe that this will offer the Smalltalk community some fairly
> unique possiblities for skinnable, hybrid UIs that cross the current
> divide between web apps and desktop apps whilst sticking with open
> standards and the runtime flexibility of Smalltalk.

Sounds a little like Curl.

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