On Tue, May 19, 2015 at 11:55 AM, Tobias Pape <Das.Linux at gmx.de> wrote:
>
> On 19.05.2015, at 18:21, Chris Muller <asqueaker at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> That logic is sound except from one POV:  which is that #inspect and
>> #explore are used as a debugging tools for _users_.  For years, I've
>> been able to simply put one word "inspect" in a strategic place in my
>> application code to help me debug it.  Now, I'm forced to add
>> parentheses, cascades and, in some cases, even temp vars (!!) just to
>> avoid getting a SystemWindow tangled up into my domain model.
>>
>> For you as a UI-framework developer, I can understand there might be
>> case or two where you would want to debug SystemWindow stuff.  But
>> that is the 0.1% usage case.  The 99.9% usage case is Squeak users are
>> interacting with their own domain model and they want to use #inspect
>> as a debugging tool.
>>
>> What do other Smalltalks return from #inspect?  If you want to be
>> consistent how about we be consistent with them?
>>
> That's compatibility and portability, not consistency.

Well, compatibility and portability refers to production code.  If
we're talking about the classic Smalltalk debugging tool #inspect,
then that is about a consistency of user-experience between the
Smalltalk dialects.  For some things in Smalltalk, the code _is_ the
UI.  #inspect is one of those things (as is #printString).

> Alas, we seldom have them all.

But we can try.  :)  We know the use-case for wanting classic
#inspect, could you (or someone) articulate what is the use-case where
I would want a SystemWindow back from inspect?