[Glass] Basic questions regarding GemBuilder for Smalltalk, GemTools, and tODE

[Mariano Martinez Peck]

Hi guys,

I am evaluating GemStone for a client and I want to give it a try. I have a
very high level idea of GemStone but I never use it for real. The
application I may need to run in GemStone is a Seaside app 3.0 + Magritte3.

Something that confuses me a lot if all these pieces that seem somehow
related: GemBuilder for Smalltalk, GemTools, and tODE. And I have a few
questions related to these. Thanks in advance for any help you can give me.

>From what I understand, I do need a kind of "GemBuilder for Smalltalk" in
order to connect my client Smalltalk (Pharo in my case) to GemStone. But
there isn't any GemBuilder for Pharo (only VW and VA). I also thought part
of GemBuilder was to map certain kernel classes of the client language to
GemStone, to retrieve objects from GemStone into my smalltalk client
vm..etc.

So..I guess GemTools is a subset of an equivalent "GemBuilder for Pharo"?
What is its relation to the GemBuilder?
>From what I understand, GemTools offers me some tools to connect to a
GemStone server, load code, execute some code on the server, etc etc etc. I
think I can do more or less the same with Topaz as well. That means that
GemBuilder is optional and I could use Topaz only. If I use Topaz directly,
it means that I don't need any GemBuilder at all for Pharo? If true, how
then it happens that "mapping of certain kernel classes" that I read
somewhere?  in other word, why would I not need a GemBuilder for Pharo but
do need it for VW and VA? Just because there is no UI and all we have is
seaside running? And if I run Seaside in VW then I don't need GemBuilder
for VW?

If I don't need GemBuilder at all, how can I know which classes/methods of
Pharo can I use and which ones I cannot?

I noticed the GemTools is based on a very very old Pharo image. I guess
this is not a very big problem because I would use that image only to load
my code into GemStone and maybe for other small issues. Still, I will
continue developing my app in Pharo 2.0 and I will keep having my
ConfigurationOfXXX with the proper load for GemStone. Right?

Anyway...now how is tODE related to GemTools? What does tODE help me
regarding GemStone? Can I use it already or should I still with
GemTools/Topaz for the moment? I searched  in Gemtalk Systems and I found
nothing.


Thank you very much!

-- 
Mariano
http://marianopeck.wordpress.com
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