Usability and look-and-feel (was Re: [squeak-dev] The future of Squeak & Pharo (was Re: [Pharo-project] [ANN] Pharo MIT license clean))

Stéphane Rollandin lecteur at zogotounga.net
Mon Jun 29 18:40:45 UTC 2009


> Usability comes second in the list of complains from my acquaintances,
> which I tried to Squeak-e-vangelize. The first obstacle is obviously
> no edit-compile-cycle but we ain't gonna get it (it makes no sense at
> all in Squeak).

At this point I'm just puzzled. Why would people so deeply in love with 
the edit-compile-cycle they find it hard to live without it even 
consider Smalltalk (or Lisp, for that matter) in the first place ? I'm 
lost. Maybe you should start by selecting a bit more carefully the 
people you want to Squeak-e-vangelize (half-kidding here, no offense 
intended).


> the programmers not so familiar with Squeak definitively
> have to understand the principle behind the workspace, transcript,
> class browser, saving an image, etc. Nonetheless, the sense of being
> lost in this new but exciting environment would not repulse them if
> only they could find familiar elements.

Or, at the contrary: let them experience a big shock that wipes out 
their preconceived ideas about programming. Trying to help them avoid 
that shock may actually make thing more difficult for them in the long 
term. They have to grok that Smalltalk *is* different.


Stef




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