Presentation for OSDC in Melbourne, Australia

[tleeuwenburg]

Hi all,

I'm thinking of submitting a presentation introducing Cobra at OSDC (http://www.osdc.com.au/). I thought I would introduce it from the ground up, as I think most people probably won't be familiar with Cobra. I'm also a total newb with the language, but it's a good opportunity for me to learn more about it and broaden my horizons a bit. At this stage, I only need to put together an abstract for the presentation submission stage, but I thought I'd ask a few questions here. I'll take the time to learn the answers properly myself in due course, but the abstract deadline is pretty soon (few days) so I need some help to make sure I get the details right. The gap between getting the nod from work and the abstract deadline is small . I'm not portraying myself as a Cobra expert (since I'm not), but just interested in sharing something cool with other open source developers...

1) Does the SharpDevelop plugin actually work to some extent? Can I edit Cobra Files and run/debug a Cobra solution?
2) Does Cobra work inside Silverlight?
3) Is there anything which people think "can't be left out" or which they would particularly like to see included?
4) Which are the three most 'do something cool' projects for Cobra right now, if I'm going to demo something in the presentation
5) What are the top development priorities for Cobra right now?
6) Anything I've forgotten to ask...

I'll check back here regularly, but also feel free to email me at tleeuwenburg@gmail.com. I've set update notification on though, so either should be fine.

Cheers,
-T

[eric.sellon]

It would be cool for Cobra to get more exposure. I'll try to give you some thoughts about your questions, although Chuck would be a much, much better source. I'm not a Cobra expert either; I'm trying to learn the language by allegedly "fixing" bugs reported in a Trac ticket (just started, so I haven't done many yet). I think, in reality, I'm enhancing the reported bugs
You might want to look at Chuck's slides http://cobra-language.com/docs/papers-etc/Cobra-San-Diego-2009-06-Slides.pdf if you haven't already. Also there's a good article on Cobra here http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/dd882513.aspx.

1) Does the SharpDevelop plugin actually work to some extent? Can I edit Cobra Files and run/debug a Cobra solution?

That's not ready yet. As far as I know, no one has stared work on that. If you haven't seen it, there's a wiki page on editor support for Cobra.

2) Does Cobra work inside Silverlight?

Chuck opened a ticket (#160) on that. Basically, as far as I know, no one has tried it with Silverlight.

3) Is there anything which people think "can't be left out" or which they would particularly like to see included?

I vote for a Dilbert cartoon!

4) Which are the three most 'do something cool' projects for Cobra right now, if I'm going to demo something in the presentation

Well the .NET/Mono libraries are accessible from Cobra, so you can do web server apps and media apps. There really isn't anything big yet that I'm aware of since the language is still so young.

5) What are the top development priorities for Cobra right now?

Well Chuck is working on a Java Virtual Machine backend right now. Otherwise I suggest you look at the open tickets by going to the wiki and clicking on tickets.

6) Anything I've forgotten to ask...

Of course. What's the meaning of life?

Hope that helps.

[Charles]

Thanks for your interest in Cobra.

1) Does the SharpDevelop plugin actually work to some extent? Can I edit Cobra Files and run/debug a Cobra solution?

Someone made a syntax highlighting file for SharpDevelop+Cobra. I haven't tried it out yet, so cannot comment how smoothly it works. Hopefully, agustech will comment since he wrote it.

2) Does Cobra work inside Silverlight?

Not yet.

3) Is there anything which people think "can't be left out" or which they would particularly like to see included?

Coding for quality, contracts, unit tests, informative asserts. The primary influences on Cobra are Python, C#, Objective-C & Eiffel.

4) Which are the three most 'do something cool' projects for Cobra right now, if I'm going to demo something in the presentation

I usually get a good reaction from people when they find out the Cobra compiler is written in Cobra. You can flash them some source. You can point out that any community member could potentially contribute to the compiler since they know the language the compiler is written in.

gauthier has a webapp he's building. Is that something he can share?

5) What are the top development priorities for Cobra right now?

There is the "ongoing category" which includes support on the forums, fixes, regular releases and regular updates. Then there are the big items: JVM back-end, Silverlight support/integration, completing mix-ins language feature (which allows the programmer to break out of single inheritance).

6) Anything I've forgotten to ask...

See the aforementioned slides. But feel free to use your own words, to cull slides you're not comfortable with, etc.

-Chuck

[Charles]

Let me know when/if you do the presentation and I can announce it in the News forum and my blog. Thanks.

[tleeuwenburg]

I'll make sure to let you know if it goes ahead. I have submitted several presentation abstracts, so now it is up to the conference organisers to chose which presentations they would like to see (if any). I imagine it might take some time for them to sort that out, so we'll see how it goes.

[Charles]

Did anything happen with this?

[tleeuwenburg]

Hi Chuck,

That particular presentation wasn't accepted (two others of mine were -- I gave the organisers a choice). I'm definitely going to the conference, though, which is running in late November. I'll endeavour to give a lightning talk on Cobra and will certainly talk to people about it.

Cheers,
-Tennessee

[Charles]

Excellent. Thanks for the update.