Why we should remove {} from Squeak

Fleeberz at aol.com Fleeberz at aol.com
Mon Oct 1 15:00:07 UTC 2001


In a message dated 2001-10-01 8:31:37 AM, spair at advantive.com writes:

>I'm not arguing against using mathematical precedence, just that the
>idea be carefully considered.  Also, there are many mathematical
>expressions that cannot be rendered in plain text.  Why not augment
>Squeak with the complete language of mathematics instead?  Let's allow
>a
>mathematical expression to be constructed using a full graphical
>representation and then be dropped into a method.

Why not? I'm not up to the task, but it could be a "cute" project for someone 
to work on a specialized graphical editor for mathematics, nothing too 
all-inclusive, but which could indeed "keep track of" what's being edited 
sufficiently to produce a representative Smalltalk expression.
Seems to me (YMMV), nothing all THAT tricky would be required beyond the 2D 
region mapping for "zones of acceptance" for the formula parts... move 
pointer over suitable regions, they highlight for character entry if 
appropriate, click to create a submorph as needed, click within highlight to 
edit, drag handy parts from a bin into the formula, do simple algebra as 
terms are dragged around, etc.

Yeah. So simple. Sure would be fun though!

--Flee




More information about the Squeak-dev mailing list