amber
v0.22.1
Published
An implementation of the Smalltalk language that runs on top of the JS runtime.
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Amber
Copyright 2011-2015 Nicolas Petton
Copyright 2014-2017 Herbert Vojčík and Amber contributors
Amber is an implementation of the Smalltalk language that runs on top of the JavaScript runtime. It is designed to make client-side development faster and easier.
Try Amber online and learn more on project page.
Overview
Amber is written in itself, including the parser and compiler. Amber compiles into efficient JavaScript, mapping one-to-one with the equivalent JavaScript. There is no interpretation at runtime.
Some highlights:
- Amber features an IDE with a Class browser, Workspace, Transcript, a ReferencesBrowser supporting senders/implementors and class references, basic Inspector and even a beginning of a Debugger and a unit TestRunner.
- Pharo Smalltalk is considered as the reference implementation.
- Amber is extendable with libraries, installable preferably via
bower
:amber-contrib-web
with a canvas to generate HTML, like Seaside, included in a new project by default,silk
with a stream-like wrapping of DOM elements, included in a new project by default,helios
IDE, included in a new project by default,amber-contrib-legacy
with smaller in-page "classic" IDE and some miscellany, included in a new project by default,trysmalltalk
, containing Prof Stef interactive crash course.- and others. You can easily write an Amber library yourself.
- Amber can use Javascript libraries; the "classic" IDE as well as Helios are built on jQuery
- You can inline Javascript code and there are many ways to interact between Amber and Javascript
Prerequisities
Amber cli tool to create new projects and assist with development tasks is in a npm package @ambers/cli
.
Amber engine and core library to be used in projects is in a bower package amber
.
For the installation to work, you need to have installed node
, npm
and git
.
Default node
installers may install npm
as well.
To have git
in Windows, use Git for Windows and select "Run Git from Windows Command Prompt" and "Checkout Windows-style, commit Unix-style" installation options.
For UNIX-based OS (Linux distibutions, FreeBSD, ...) do
npm config set prefix=~/npm
export PATH="$PATH:$HOME/npm/bin"
to have the installation in a local subdirectory in order to avoid the otherwise necessary sudo
installation of Amber. The export line needs to be added to the ~/.profile file as well so that after a new login the path is set.
Getting Amber and setting up an initial project
Do this to install Amber
# In case you have installed older package `amber-cli`, uninstall it.
npm uninstall -g amber-cli
# Install the CLI tool `@ambers/cli` and supporting tools
npm install -g grunt-cli grunt-init bower @ambers/cli
Use amber init
to create a project of your own
# Initialize your project (directory must be empty)
cd /path/to/myproject
amber init
# (optional) Install backward compatibility
bower install amber-compat-es5 --save # be loadable in older browsers
Start developing in Amber Smalltalk
# Serve amber on localhost:4000
amber serve
What this repo contains and what it does not
It must be noted this repo contains only core functionality of Amber system
as well as accompanying tooling (sdk
and cli
).
The initial project comes with some libraries (amber/web
, domite
, silk
etc.)
included; these libraries are not part of this repo, though. You can find them either in
Amber organization or, for some of them, in their own pages:
DOMite, Silk.
In case something fails...
Amber hackers can be found on the Rocket.chat instance here: https://chat.amber-lang.net
Most of Amber discussion and help happens on the Google group
Report issues with the www.amber-lang.net website only here: https://lolg.it/amber/amber-website/issues.
Report issues with the docs.amber-lang.net website only here: https://lolg.it/amber/documentation/issues.
Report issues with
amber init
project template here: https://lolg.it/amber/grunt-init-amber/issues.Report issues with Amber engine, core library, as well as with
amber
/amberc
cli tools here: https://lolg.it/amber/amber/issues.Report issues with the Helios IDE here: https://lolg.it/amber/helios/issues.
Please refer to CONTRIBUTING.md for further details.
Developing Amber
Please refer to CONTRIBUTING.md for further details. It explains the Amber development setup and how to contribute.
License
Amber is released under the MIT license. All contributions made for inclusion are considered to be under MIT.