[squeak-dev] Re: Usability and look-and-feel (was Re: The future ofSqueak & Pharo (was Re: [Pharo-project] [ANN] Pharo MIT licenseclean))

Andreas Raab andreas.raab at gmx.de
Wed Jul 8 17:13:51 UTC 2009


Igor Stasenko wrote:
> In same way, i heard from multiple people here, when i asked: why you
> never try/use Pharo , the answer was:
>  - i can't use OB, it is alien to me.
> What is interesting, that as to me, the default Squeak browser and OB
> are pretty much the same.
> So there is another side of this: an inertia of people who mastered
> something & using it , and don't see any reasons why things need to be
> changed in any way.

I think this particular question may have a different answer. I tried OB 
on Pharo when I was looking into some FFI troubles. The main noticable 
difference was *incredible* sluggishness. Every single action was 
greeted with a 2-5 seconds pause. I kid you not. Granted, my computer 
isn't exactly the fastest, but those were all actions where with the 
regular Squeak browser I feel no noticable delay whatsoever.

The other thing I noticed was that OB did not come across as very 
robust. Several trivial actions (like opening a context menu in the code 
pane) would just blow up.

If I'd have to guess, then the sluggishness of OB is a major hindrance 
in its acceptance. As you say, since the browsers are so similar there 
is really little reason to choose the slow one ;-)

Cheers,
   - Andreas



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