Why Gjallar is a "bad" Magma example (was Re: Great News - Pharo Support - Now Seaside.)

[Chris Muller]

> I know that am a bit lazy in reading the code to learn the usage of a package.
> I always prefer tutorials and examples.
> Given the *huge* codebase of magma and the complexity, for a

Just to put some numbers on "*huge*":

  Magma R42 client package:  1508 methods
  Magma R42 server package:  890 methods
  (for comparison)
  Seaside 2.8 package:  3066 methods

Now, the Magma packages do require the lower "Ma" platform for
networking, serialization and other services (just as Seaside requires
Kom packages for its networking), which adds another 2314 methods.
But these layers are truly independent of Magma (independently used by
multiple other applications, without Magma), you probably don't need
to be too concerned about the code there for regular business
applications.

> common
> guy like me, the
> laziness is bigger.
> But, when reading the magma mailing list I always found gems like this
> (that I have been
> collecting for future reference) that it appears that nobody else knows.
> This is the reason for my call for a better documentation for magma.

Incidentally, this gem is mentioned in the docs, top of the page:

    http://wiki.squeak.org/squeak/5606

but leaves the reader to "find" it themselves (hint:  Look in the
"performance" category of MagmaSession).  I recommend not being "lazy"
in reading the code and even stepping through it in the debugger.  Not
just Magma, but any package you want to learn.  Seeing it in action is
really a powerful teacher.  Tutorials are great for getting going, but
some of the finer points like performance statistics only matter when
the user is more into the details anyway..

Regards,
  Chris