Squeak newbie questions

ajh18 at cornell.edu ajh18 at cornell.edu
Sat Mar 10 20:11:58 UTC 2001


simon.bates at hushmail.com wrote:
> --Hushpart_boundary_WEGgfWuWSCbEOoPEfKsIPOcGNjQwdmPs
> Content-type: text/plain
> 
> At Thu, 8 Mar 2001 19:33:02 -0800, Ned Konz <ned at bike-nomad.com> wrote:
> >
> >On Thursday 08 March 2001 15:58, simon.bates at hushmail.com wrote:
> >> While I feel like I have a grasp of the Smalltalk programming language 
> >and
> >> programming environment I think that I am not really grasping some 
> >of how
> >> to use Squeak as a user environment, particularly the image.
> >> By "user environment" I mean the environment I use to perform tasks
> >> using a computer, such as writing documentation,
> >> browsing the web, reading and writing email, drawing pictures, etc. 
> >At the
> >> level of program usage and program interaction I am used to thinking 
> >in
> >> terms of data files and
> >> programs that operate on data files. Before discovering Smalltalk 
> >I had
> >> done object
> >> oriented programming in Java and C++. However, when using these languages
> >> I still built
> >> programs that operated on data files. I am not used to working in 
> >a system
> >> which is object
> >> oriented on all scales.
> >
> >Objects don't get rid of files. Keep in mind that the image can be relatively 
> >fragile; it's possible to get all kinds of cruft in it, to save it in 
> >an 
> >unstable state, etc. Don't keep anything precious _just_ in an image. 
> >That's 
> >why there are so many methods in the system that read and write stuff 
> >from 
> >and to disk.
> 
> Thanks a lot for your reply. I was thinking that the original aim of Smalltalk 
> was to provide an environment in which you can do all of your work. That 
> is, to essentially have a Smalltalk system as your Operating System and 
> for the Smalltalk image to replace the regular disk filing system.

I think this is our end goal, but we need persistence and sharing to
work better.  ImageSegments and Projects are going in this direction. 
Files are easy to save and share, but as my professor once said, "Files
are dumb; objects are smart." (i.e. files don't have methods associated
with them).
 
> However, from the recent discussion on forking Squeak I get the sense that people 
> also use Squeak like just another development platform and that they want 
> it to integrate into their regular operating system. Do people use Squeak 
> as their primary enviroment and the image as the primary place to store 
> data?

They will eventually, hopefully.

-Anthony





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