1. Newspeak

Newspeak is a new programming language in the tradition of Self and Smalltalk.

The Newspeak IDE is delivered via the web at https://www.newspeaklanguage.org/webIDE/ as a Progressive Web App (PWA). This means that you can install it locally on your device, and then run it without needing an internet connection. Updates are delivered automatically whenever you are online - this is enabled by the PWA.

If you are testing or developing in Newspeak, the online version is all you need. You could stop here and consult the Newspeak resources linked above.

But you may decide to build and serve Newspeak or your own Newspeak application locally. The sections explain how to do so.

Note: below, the terms 'serve', 'server' refer to 'serve in a HTTP server', 'HTTP server' or similar.

2. How to build, deploy, and serve Newspeak applications

This is only a terse introduction to creating and serving Newspeak applications.

A Newspeak application is a Newspeak object which adheres to a few specific API naming conventions. Its class can be saved to a .ns source file, and used to create an instance that is serialized into a binary .vfuel, which is deployed and served.

Note:: You can usually run the application inside the IDE for purposes of testing and development, provided you have the source code loaded in the IDE. We won't discuss that here - this document is focused on application deployment.

A .vfuel file can be created from its source class in one of two ways:

1. From the locally served or online Newspeak IDE by clicking the [deploy] link beside the application class. This process is not described in this document.

2. From a command line, by first saving the application class to a .ns source file, then running the build.sh script described below. To use this command line method, you need to install several items. This process is described in the Building Newspeak from scratch section and its subsections.

To serve a Newspeak application in a HTTP server, you need a binary file with .vfuel extension, one or more HTML files, and at least two files, 'primordialsoup.js' and 'primordialsoup.wasm' (both created by build.sh), and potentially other application specific resources.

3. Building Newspeak from scratch

TL;DR: If you want to build the Newspeak IDE or any Newspeak application from scratch, follow the installation steps in section 3.1 and subsection 3.1.1 (each only needs to be performed once). Then follow the steps in section 4.1 (for the Newspeak IDE running as a PWA) or 4.2 (for any application, running as a website). The steps in section 4.1 or 4.2 are repeated after after any change in the application.

In addition to using the online version of the Newspeak IDE, you can build, deploy, and serve the Newspeak system, or any Newspeak application, on your computer. There may be a few reasons to build and use the Newspeak system this way:

• You just want to learn how to do it.
• You want to write, build, and serve your own Newspeak application (a .vfuel file), or serve the Newspeak IDE from your own HTTP server for local or public consumption.

Read and follow the steps below to build Newspeak locally (on your computer) from scratch.

3.1 Building Newspeak: installing required software

This is needed one-time only.

Building Newspeak locally requires some software to be downloaded, cloned from Github, or installed: Newspeak, Primordialsoup and it's dependencies and targets: Emscripten, Scons, and g++-multilib. Details of how to install the required software are below.

The default directories for installing Newspeak, Primordialsoup and Emscripten are determined by environment variables set in newspeak/tool/newspeak_env.sh. These variables and their default values are

export EMSDK=~/software/emsdk                           # Emscripten directory
export NEWSPEAK=~/software/nswasm/newspeak              # Newspeak directory
export PRIMORDIALSOUP=~/software/nswasm/primordialsoup  # Primordialsoup directory

We use these defaults throughout the rest of this document. If you wish to use different directories, you will need to do two things:

• Adjust references to the above directory names in this document
• After cloning Newspeak in the steps below, edit the file newspeak/tool/newspeak_env.sh and adjust the directory names to your situation.

The installation steps:

1. Start with creating a directory for Newspeak and Primordialsoup, ~/software/nswasm and then clone this repo under it.
2. In ~/software/nswasm, also clone https://github.com/newspeaklanguage/primordialsoup and switch to the branch called extraRevs.

You can use the following commands to execute 1. and 2. just above:

mkdir --parent ~/software/nswasm
cd ~/software/nswasm # Adjust to your directory path
git clone https://github.com/newspeaklanguage/newspeak.git
git clone https://github.com/newspeaklanguage/primordialsoup.git
cd primordialsoup
git checkout extraRevs

To be clear: at this point, you should now have a directory named ~/software/nswasm, with two subdirectories; newspeak, containing this repository, and primordialsoup, containing the extraRevs branch of https://github.com/newspeaklanguage/primordialsoup.

Important: If you are using 'non default' directories for your installation, now edit the file newspeak/tool/newspeak_env.sh, change the exported variables there, and save the file.

3.1.1 Building Newspeak: installing Primordialsoup dependencies

Next, you will need to install software needed by the Primordialsoup build.

Unless you are targetting Fuchsia, follow steps 1 to 3 in this section to install and build Primordialsoup and its dependencies.

1. Install and configure Emscripten and Primordialsoup dependencies: building Primordial Soup requires a C++ compiler and SCons.

   • On Debian/Ubuntu:

     sudo apt-get install g++-multilib scons
     

   • On Opensuse:

     sudo zypper install scons
     sudo zypper install -t pattern devel_basis   devel_C_C++   32bit 
     

   • On macOS, install XCode and SCons.

   • On Windows, install Visual Studio and SCons.

2. Install and configure the Emscripten SDK (emsdk): Emscripten is a compiler that compiles C and C++ sources to WebAssembly, which can then be executed by browsers.

   Clone the Emscripten SDK (emsdk) using these steps

   # Set the Newspeak environment.
   cd ~/software/nswasm/newspeak # Adjust to your directory path
   . ./tool/newspeak_env.sh      # The '. ' at the beginning is required
   
   # Clone the emsdk
   cd $EMSDK/..
   git clone https://github.com/emscripten-core/emsdk.git
   
   # Install the emsdk version 2.0.0
   cd emsdk
   ./emsdk install 2.0.0
   ./emsdk activate 2.0.0
   . ./emsdk_env.sh
   
   # List the emsdk installed
   ./emsdk list
   

   Note: '2.0.0' is the default supported version of emsdk. To use the latest Emscripten SDK, you can replace '2.0.0' with 'latest' in the script above. BUT, if you do that, you also have to edit the scons build file named SConstruct in the $PRIMORDIALSOUP directory, and replace the following line

      '-s', 'EXPORTED_FUNCTIONS=["_load_snapshot", "_handle_message", "_handle_signal"]',
   

   with

      '-s', 'EXPORTED_FUNCTIONS=["_load_snapshot", "_handle_message", "_handle_signal", "_free", "_malloc"]',
      '-s', 'EXPORTED_RUNTIME_METHODS=["stringToUTF8"]',
   

   to be clear, the first (default) works with emsdk version '2.0.0', the second with 'latest'. As of February 12 2024, 'latest' emsdk corresponds to version '3.1.53'.

3. Build Primordialsoup (optional): You can now build primordialsoup to make sure everything installed. This step is not necessary as Primordialsoup build is part of the Newspeak build in the next section - but running it should catch any dependencies issues early.

   cd ~/software/nswasm/primordialsoup # Adjust to your directory path
   . ../newspeak/tool/newspeak_env.sh  # Set EMSDK var for next line
   . $EMSDK/emsdk_env.sh               # Setup emsdk's environment
   ./build os=emscripten arch=wasm     # Build wasm using emscripten
   

   There should be no errors in the last step, and you should see directories in the out directory under primordialsoup, notably there should be files primordialsoup/out/ReleaseEmscriptenWASM/{primordialsoup.html,primordialsoup.js,primordialsoup.wasm} and primordialsoup/out/snapshots/WebCompiler.vfuel which are used in the Newspeak build. If there are errors, you may be missing some primordialsoup dependencies described in the section above.

Note: For original instructions of Primordialsoup dependencies that include Fuchsia as a target, follow the instructions at https://github.com/newspeaklanguage/primordialsoup/blob/master/docs/building.md.

3.2 Building and deploying Newspeak applications: lifecycle

The above section Building Newspeak: installing required software including its subsection Building Newspeak: installing Primordialsoup dependencies only needs to be performed once during installation.

This section and sections below describe the repeated 'build', 'deploy', 'serve' lifecycle of Newspeak applications.

Important: All scripts to build and deploy a Newspeak application are in the newspeak/tool directory, and must be executed from the newspeak/tool directory. The Newspeak IDE is only one possible Newspeak application.

The term build refers to the process which creates the .vfuel binary files from the application source .ns files. The script newspeak/tool/build.sh is the build script. You need to run a 'build' to regenerate the application's .vfuel file.

Before creating a .vfuel, you should ensure that you have saved any modified source code it depends upon, be it one of the Newspeak core classes, or a class that is a part of your application.

The term deploy refers to the process of copying the Newspeak application .vfuel file and other files and resources (.html, .js, .png) to the 'deploy directory' where an HTTP server is or will be running. The 'deploy' step also copies scripts that can start an HTTP server to the 'deploy directory'. Newspeak applications can be deployed in two ways: as a regular website or as a Progressive Web App (PWA).

• Deploying as a website: is performed by the script deploy-all-vfuels-as-website.sh. Running this script deploys all .vfuel files built by the script newspeak/tool/build.sh.
• Deploying as a PWA: Currently, only the Newspeak IDE application binary HopscotchWebIDE.vfuel (referred to as webIDE) can be deployed and served as a PWA out of the box. This deployment of the webIDE is performed by the script newspeak/tool/deploy-webide-vfuel-as-pwa.sh.

Note: If you want to deploy other application's .vfuel as a PWA, you can clone the directory structure under webIDE, rename it, make changes to index.html, manifest.json, sw.js, primordialsoup-setup.js, remove files not applicable to your application, and replace HopscotchWebIDE.vfuel with your application's .vfuel.

Refer to section [4. Building, deploying, and serving Newspeak application(s)](4.-Building,-deploying,-and-serving-Newspeak applications) for more details regarding the two deployment methods.

The term serve refers to running the HTTP server in a directory where the Newspeak application was 'deploy'ed. You also need to start the HTTP server in the 'deployment directory' in order to run the application outside the development environment.

3.3 Building Newspeak applications: the build.sh script

The script newspeak/tool/build.sh builds primordialsoup, followed by building the .vfuel files listed in the script, then copies the .vfuel files to the newspeak/out directory along with other files needed to serve the application in the .vfuel binary. It must be executed from the newspeak/tool directory.

Below are two examples of building:

1. The default build: This works out of the box, as described above. Use this if you are starting to build Newspeak.

   cd ~/software/nswasm/newspeak # Adjust to your directory path
   cd tool
   ./build.sh
   

2. The extended build: Can be used to build your own application's .vfuel. As an example, your application is in class 'CheckedItemApp' (saved to the file 'CheckedItemApp.ns'). You can build its .vfuel either by editing the 'build.sh' and adding the appropriate line, or using this extended method. The arguments are one or more 3-tuples describing the runtime, the application class, and the vfuel name. Here is the example build.

   cd ~/software/nswasm/newspeak # Adjust to your directory path
   cd tool
   ./build.sh RuntimeForHopscotchForHTML CheckedItemApp CheckedItemApp.vfuel
   

4. Building, deploying, and serving Newspeak applications

As described in Building and deploying Newspeak: lifecycle, Newspeak applications can be deployed and served as a Progressive Web App (PWA), or a 'regular' website. Currently, only the Newspeak IDE application, the webIDE, can be deployed and served as a PWA out of the box.

Reflecting the above, there are two 'deploy' scripts, deploy-webide-vfuel-as-pwa.sh and deploy-all-vfuels-as-website.sh. Both require an argument containing a name of the directory from which the Newspeak applications are served by the script serve-newspeak.sh. The first (PWA) deploy script also requires a name of the PWA version file (usually 'localhost'; otherwise 'newspeaklanguage.org', 'myApp.com' or similar).

4.1 Building, deploying, and serving Newspeak IDE as a Progressive Web Application (PWA)

Currently, only the Newspeak IDE application binary HopscotchWebIDE.vfuel can be deployed and served as a PWA out of the box (any other .vfuel application you have can be deployed as a website, see later items).

The PWA deployment of the HopscotchWebIDE.vfuel is performed by the script newspeak/tool/deploy-webide-vfuel-as-pwa.sh.

Read and run the following script steps to build, deploy, and serve the HopscotchWebIDE.vfuel as a PWA.

Assuming you started the application server for the PWA app on port 8081 in the script steps below, the application can be accessed at a URL http://localhost:8081/webIDE.

# Build Step: 
#   Should be run at least once, and after any change to a Newspeak source file.
#   Builds all '.vfuel' files listed in the 'build.sh' 
#   and places them to the 'out' directory. 
#   Note: The listed '.vfuel' files include the 'HopscotchWebIDE.vfuel'.

cd ~/software/nswasm/newspeak # Adjust to your directory path
cd tool
./build.sh
   
# Deploy Step:
#
#   Deploys the 'HopscotchWebIDE.vfuel' as a Progressive Web App (PWA) (as opposed to a website).
#   Copies all built files to the Newspeak HTTPs server directory
#   specified in the first argument, and updates the PWA Service Worker version file
#   specified in the second argument. The updated version is used as the PWA cache version.
#   By 'All built files' we mean the 'HopscotchWebIDE.vfuel' and miscellaneous js and html files
#   supporting the PWA, as well as the script 'serve-newspeak.sh', which starts the HTTP server.
#
# Arguments:
#
#   1. http-server-dir
#   2. pwa-version-file 
#   See function 'args_parse_for_deploy_as_pwa' for details
#
# Usage Examples:
#
#   1. Deploy files to server running from
#      the '~/servers/newspeak-http-server' directory, serving as 'localhost'
#      - cd tool
#      - ./deploy-webide-vfuel-as-pwa.sh  ~/servers/newspeak-http-server  localhost
#
#   2. Deploy files to server running from
#      the '~/servers/newspeak-http-server' directory, serving as 'newspeaklanguage.org'
#      - cd tool
#      - ./deploy-webide-vfuel-as-pwa.sh  ~/servers/newspeak-http-server  newspeaklanguage.org
#
#      'newspeaklanguage.org' is a special case in the sense that git does NOT ignore
#      it's version file, the '$NEWSPEAK/pwa-deployed-versions/newspeaklanguage.org.version'.
#      This ensures the global uniqueness of the PWA version served from 'https://newspeaklanguage.org'.
#
#   3. Deploy files to server running from
#      the '../out' directory, serving as 'localhost'. 
#      This mimicks how the server was originally used, serving from the '../out' directory.
#      The advantage of serving from the '../out' directory is that 
#      *you ONLY need to run the 'deploy' script once, after, just keep running the 'build.sh' script.*
#      - cd tool
#      - ./deploy-webide-vfuel-as-pwa.sh  ../out  localhost

httpServerRunPath=~/servers/newspeak-http-server # Adjust to where you want HTTP server running

./deploy-webide-vfuel-as-pwa.sh $httpServerRunPath localhost

# Start HTTP server: 
# 
#   One time only - rerunning the above 'Build step' and 'Deploy step' does not
#                    require server restart

cd "$httpServerRunPath"
./serve-newspeak.sh 8081

# Next: If your './serve-newspeak.sh 8081' serves 'localhost', (then your second argument 
#       to './deploy-webide-vfuel-as-pwa.sh' should also be 'localhost'), and you can 
#       access the webIDE binary `HopscotchWebIDE.vfuel` from the browser as:
#
#     http://localhost:8081/webIDE
#

Running the above commands would build, deploy, and serve the HopscotchWebIDE.vfuel as a PWA.

4.2 Building, deploying, and serving any Newspeak application (.vfuel) as a website

The script newspeak/tool/deploy-all-vfuels-as-website.sh deploys all .vfuel files built and copied into the newspeak/out directory as a website.

Read and run the following script steps to build, deploy, and serve any .vfuel application as a website.

Assuming you started the application server for the website on port 8081 in the script steps below, each built .vfuel file can be accessed similar to http://localhost:8081/primordialsoup.html?snapshot=HopscotchWebIDE.vfuel, http://localhost:8081/primordialsoup.html?snapshot=CounterApp.vfuel, etc.

# Build Step: 
#   Should be run at least once, and after any change to a Newspeak source file.
#   Builds all '.vfuel' files listed in the 'build.sh' 
#   and places them to the 'out' directory. 

cd ~/software/nswasm/newspeak # Adjust to your directory path
cd tool
./build.sh
   
# Deploy Step:
#
#   Deploys all '.vfuel' files listed in 'build.sh' as a website (as opposed to PWA).  
#   Copies all built files to the Newspeak HTTPs server directory
#   specified in the first argument.
#   By 'All built files' we mean all '.vfuel' files built by 'build.sh',
#   and miscellaneous js and html files supporting the website.
#
# Arguments:
#
#   1. http-server-dir
#   Note: there is no need for the second argument as in the PWA script -
#         we do not need a PWA version number.
#   See function 'args_parse_for_deploy_as_website' for details
#
# Usage Examples:
#   1. Deploy files to server running from
#      the '~/servers/newspeak-http-server' directory
#     - cd tool
#     - ./deploy-all-vfuels-as-website.sh  ~/servers/newspeak-http-server
#   2. Deploy files to server running from
#      the '../out' directory.
#      This mimicks how the server was originally used, serving from the '../out' directory.
#      The advantage of serving from the '../out' directory is that 
#      *You ONLY need to run this 'deploy' script once, after, just keep running the 'build.sh' script.*
#     - cd tool
#     - ./deploy-all-vfuels-as-website.sh  ../out

httpServerRunPath=~/servers/newspeak-http-server # Adjust to where you want HTTP server running

./deploy-all-vfuels-as-website.sh $httpServerRunPath

# Start HTTP server: 
# 
#   One time only - rerunning the above 'Build step' and 'Deploy step' does not
#                    require server restart

cd "$httpServerRunPath"
./serve-newspeak.sh 8081

# Next: If your './serve-newspeak.sh 8081' serves 'localhost',
#       you can access the '.vfuel' application from the browser as:
#
#     http://localhost:8081/primordialsoup.html?snapshot=HopscotchWebIDE.vfuel
#     http://localhost:8081/primordialsoup.html?snapshot=CounterApp.vfuel
#     etc
#