On Mon, 22 Nov 1999, Adriano wrote:

> Stefan Rieken wrote:
> >
> >I think this (new-to-me) Explorer utility is a good starting point for
> >creating a system overview. Although the current implementation seems a
> >little heavy-duty on first view (much numbers, not much words), it is
> >actually a good tool for an "end user". It shows relations in a quite
> >good manner (submorphs and instance variables). When this interface is
> >combined with that of Whisker
>
> Er... what's Whisker?

Actually, if you search the Swiki for "Whisker", you will find a few
references.  (Including the "Alternative UIs" page at
http://minnow.cc.gatech.edu/squeak.620 , which has a good amount of
relevant info lately.)

Anyway, Whisker is the name of an alternative code browser that I've been
working on.  For more info see
http://www.mindspring.com/~dway/smalltalk/whisker.html .  It's quite a
bit more functional than it was the last time it was brought up on this
list, but it's still missing some essential browser functionality, e.g.
adding inst vars, class comments, etc.  But it has reached demo-quality.
:-)  Hopefully a 1.0 version will be a few months away.

> >Luckily my ignorance has also been the occasion for thoughts on
> >"overviewing Squeak". I guess that what Marcus calls relationship, the
> >OO bookstore calls "aggregation".

Whisker mainly deals with displaying classes and methods.  I haven't
thought as much about object relationships... the Object Explorer does a
reasonable job of this.  However, there is a lot of room for improving UI
tools so that the two views work more closely together.  (I'm already
getting some ideas... :-))  E.g. it would be nice to be able to explore a
prototypical (or real) instance of a class while simultaneously viewing
its methods, etc.  (But in a manageable way!)

> >This point of view on objects reminds me of the Self discussion we had
> >lately.

True... now that Self's ported to the Mac, I'm going to look at it some
more.


- Doug Way
  dway at mat.net

I'd call myself an artist
If I could make these feelings clear
But there's a million things to think about
When you're cutting off your ear
                - Scott Miller