Towards a better IDE in Squeak

J J azreal1977 at hotmail.com
Tue Feb 20 19:37:37 UTC 2007


One thing I was thinking about this was, if we had a darcs style idea of 
patches (as I have mentioned a few times :) then maybe we could make a 
browser that would let us go back to various changes and specify a 
collection of certain ones as a specific patch and annotate it.  This might 
be a good natural feeling way to document the "why's".

Also with such a system it should be possible to remove previous patches 
that don't affect later ones, and things like that.  I think there is a lot 
of room for advancement in this area.

>From: "Klaus D. Witzel" <klaus.witzel at cobss.com>
>Reply-To: The general-purpose Squeak developers 
>list<squeak-dev at lists.squeakfoundation.org>
>To: squeak-dev at lists.squeakfoundation.org
>Subject: Re: Towards a better IDE in Squeak
>Date: Mon, 19 Feb 2007 02:50:45 +0100
>
>Hi David,
>
>what's badly missing in "modern" IDEs is the possibility to write  
>integrated documentation in form of stories. Having just a 1:n  
>correspondence between system category and classes, message category and  
>methods, is [in non-trivial cases] insufficient for describing "why and  
>how this works" and "what, in terms of entities, is this *all* about" and  
>moreover to ask for "what parts of the system have no integrated  
>documentation".
>
>I'd like to be able to drag'n'drop links to "browser accessible objects",  
>into an integrated document and write a story "around" the links.
>
>Classes, variables, categories, messages, statements, literals, all should  
>be accessible by such link.
>
>With integrated I mean, at minimum, that when browsing for senders,  
>implementors, variables and other references, then the result list must  
>also turn up the integrated documentation (which containes the links as  
>described).
>
>Another aspect of the integrated documentation is that it can (must!)  
>outdate when, for example, things are renamed or deleted. Imagine a doIt  
>for "browse outdated documentation" ;-)
>
>I hope the above was clear; if not then I'd be happy to respond to  
>questions and critique.
>
>For the empirical case study: count me in, I'm used to be electronically  
>investigated :)
>
>/Klaus
>
>On Sun, 18 Feb 2007 20:31:55 +0100, David wrote:
>
>>Hi all,
>>
>>I'm currently doing a PhD under the supervision of Stephane Ducasse and  
>>Oscar Nierstrasz at the university of Bern, Switzerland. My main  research 
>>interests are in the context of Integrated Development  Environments 
>>(IDEs). I'm planning to work on the Squeak IDE to see how  the IDE of a 
>>dynamic object-oriented programming language can be  improved and 
>>extended.
>>Especially, I want to experiment with different metaphors
>...
>>For me it is important to know if I can motivate enough people to do a  
>>serious empirical study.
>...
>>Thanks for your help.
>>
>>Kind regards,
>>David
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>

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