visibility" of class object in favour of a global context

Sean Charles bibbers at onetel.net.uk
Wed May 28 10:30:02 UTC 2003


> However the bloat is only experienced when you browse the class - it is 
> my naive opinion is that a lot of the "bloat" in Object, Colleaction, 
> Morph would disaapear if we had Traits.
Yes, bloat is only experienced when you eat the whole jar of dill pickles 
at one. The simple answer then is this: If you don't like what you see, 
don't look! Just keep on working away.

In my experience there are a couple of reasons why a class bloats:

(a) poor design..."stick it there for now, we'll refactor later"....later 
never arrives!

(b) "bubble-up", the most sought after features float higher up the 
hierarchy so as to be available to the widest number of subbies. I believe 
the posh term for this is 'good design'.

I agree that Morph *is* incredibly bloated (a veritable Mr.Creosote of a 
class)but then again, so what? If there is no performance impact then who 
cares? The current MCP and futures MCP's will hopefully re-align Morphic 
with the universe so that one day it may not be so bloated....*however* 
you will then find that the image is Trait bloated, so what have you 
really gained...I better try and explain myself, I can feel the replies a 
'comin already!

(SUSPEND REALITY HERE...)
Take a sausage ballon, fill it with sludge and then tie a knot it around 
the end. Now tie a piece of string around the middle. That's Squeak now 
that is. Ok, vulcan mind meld the balloon to move some sludge from one 
side of the balloon into the other. Same balloon, same volume of sludge, 
different proportions. Consider the string the 'refactoring horizon' or 
something.

(REALITY COMING BACK...?)
The point of that is this: Squeak is used by humans (don't go there...) 
and humans have to learn. I remember learning Squeak, in particular 
getting to know the classes that were there to help me get whatever job I 
wanted to do, done.

[SFX:KLAXON]
[though police] Sorry, time up.
[me] But...
[tp] Sorry, you were rambling and not getting anywhere.
[me](blustering)but but , you never gave me...


>
> Perhaps traits is the new concept needed in Squeak.
>

Traits? Isn't this a fancy name for 'pluggable behaviour'? I once had the 
'pleasure' of implementing a trait based iterator system over an OODBMS 
(in C++,yuk) project once upon a time...not pleasant. I cannot bear the 
sight of a template to this day.

Does that make you a Trait-or?

;-)
Sean Charles.



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