[squeak-dev] SmalltalkImage semi-self-references

Frank Shearar frank.shearar at gmail.com
Wed Jul 24 20:46:04 UTC 2013


On 24 July 2013 21:20, Nicolas Cellier
<nicolas.cellier.aka.nice at gmail.com> wrote:
> +1 for replacing SmalltalkImage current -> Smalltalk, we should have done
> that for long.

OK. I'll give the Pacific folk a chance to respond, but it sounds like
(judging by several other mails over the past few days) it might not
be an impossible change to push.

> -1 for classifying SmalltalkImage in Kernel. SmalltalkImage is a reflection
> of the System and thus has its place in System.

I'm not a huge fan of putting SmalltalkImage in Kernel either. But
Kernel refers to this in quite a few places. Well, OK, on looking
again the SmalltalkImage -> Smalltalk change would break that
particular strand.

> SmalltalkImage is not absolutely necessary for the core (not like
> MethodDictionary, MethodContext, Class, Integer, ...).
> What sort of dependency link would this simplify exactly?
> +1 for using Smalltalk os -> OSPlatform (Pharo), Smalltalk organizer etc...,
> that was my plan B.
> I failed to convince Andreas on this one, Once bitten (by former
> SmalltalkImage split), twice shy, I guess.

That's certainly a valid problem. Right now, with the velocity of
Squeak the way it is, I think we can push this through :)

frank

> Nicolas
>
>
> 2013/7/24 Frank Shearar <frank.shearar at gmail.com>
>>
>> On 20 July 2013 18:09, tim Rowledge <tim at rowledge.org> wrote:
>> >
>> > On 20-07-2013, at 9:36 AM, Bob Arning <arning315 at comcast.net> wrote:
>> >
>> >> When I see longer ways of saying something replacing shorter ways, I
>> >> always wonder if the perceived benefit has been realized. Are there success
>> >> stories out there for "SmalltalkImage current" enabling something cool that
>> >> "Smalltalk" could not?
>> >
>> > IIRC the original idea was that SystemDictionary was overloaded with
>> > nothing-to-do-with-dictionary methods and needed to go on a diet. I don't
>> > recall it being suggested that the smarter thing would have been to remove
>> > the *dictionary* stuff and put that somewhere else to use as an environment
>> > for compiling, leaving the useful system management methods attached to
>> > something called 'Smalltalk'. I really don't like the current (sic) setup
>> > where there is SmalltalkImage SystemNavigation and Smalltalk and probably
>> > other split out stuff I haven't even found.
>> >
>> > Time for re-unification.
>>
>> I'm actually in favour of _more_ splitting out. Having a one-stop-shop
>> reference for all your everythings means loads of things referencing
>> the one-stop shop. That makes modularity difficult.
>>
>> However, a possible resolution of the Tim vs Frank Paradox is to move
>> SmalltalkImage into Kernel, and have other packages _extend_
>> SmalltalkImage. Instead of "SystemNavigation default" you'd have
>> "Smalltalk organizer", and so on.
>>
>> Having said that, we have bigger fish to fry. It's easy for us to
>> bicker over the colour of the bikeshed, but we should really be
>> spending our time beating on Environments and making the tools work
>> correctly with same.
>>
>> So I'd just like to ask one thing. Is everyone happy with changing
>> "SmalltalkImage current" references to "Smalltalk"? Doing so makes my
>> job of decreasing coupling between packages much easier, because every
>> SmalltalkImage reference I remove is one less dependency on
>> System-Support. (It might also be more Environmentally friendly!)
>>
>> frank
>>
>> > tim
>> > --
>> > tim Rowledge; tim at rowledge.org; http://www.rowledge.org/tim
>> > Klingon Code Warrior:- 6) "Our competitors are without honor!"
>> >
>> >
>> >
>>
>
>
>
>


More information about the Squeak-dev mailing list