On 3/2/2010 7:21 PM, Ronald Spengler wrote:
> Well heck:) I don't think my opinion is of a lot of value here, but
> aesthetically I'd like to see SmalltalkImage killed. Partly I'm just
> not clear on what concerns it really separates.

The dictionary and the name aspect. Option #2 has the effect that 
Smalltalk is-no-longer-a Dictionary. I do find that an improvement; 
subclassing the collection classes by something that's not really a 
collection (in this case SystemDictionary is a representative of the 
Smalltalk environment with very few dictionary aspects) isn't 
particularly good design. Plus I find it a bit problematic that in 
option #1 Smalltalk is an instance of SystemDictionary and 
SmalltalkImage is a class that has no relationship to the Smalltalk image.

Cheers,
   - Andreas

> On Tuesday, March 2, 2010, Andreas Raab<andreas.raab at gmx.de>  wrote:
>> On 3/2/2010 9:04 AM, Eliot Miranda wrote:
>>
>> The worst thing going on with things like SmalltalkImage current,
>> SystemNavigation default and traits is the introduction of abstraction
>> for its own sake.  Abstraction is properly used to manage complexity.
>>    But for example, as others have pointed out, there is no other image
>> than the current image and so SmalltalkImage current is merely verbiage.
>>    And yet SourceFiles is an obvious area which could use a lot more
>> features (being able to load package sources without appending them to
>> the sources file, or having two changes files, one for loaded packages,
>> one for user modifications, etc).
>>
>>
>> Thanks Eliot. That's an *excellent* description of the problem.
>>
>> Cheers,
>>    - Andreas
>>
>>
>