[squeak-dev] The Trunk: Morphic-mt.1852.mcz

Marcel Taeumel marcel.taeumel at hpi.de
Sat Jan 29 17:08:24 UTC 2022


Hi Jaromir --

I don't think that you want to actively manage files during regular Smalltalk programming. Workspaces are neat. They cannot only hold code but also generic notes side-by-side. No need to plan ahead. Just start coding in a Workspace and see where it takes you. Maybe more code. Maybe some notes.

@all: I updated the #fileOutOnAccept preference to let the user opt-in per Workspace window as Jakob suggested:



The Smalltalk veterans may either click "No" here or disable #fileOutOnAccept to not get such a prompt in the first place.

In the long term, maybe, we may want to offer users to have "workspaces" that are not bound to an actual window. And offer a seamless transition from workspace-scripts to classes+methods. So many ideas. :-)

Best,
Marcel
Am 28.01.2022 17:47:46 schrieb Jaromir Matas <mail at jaromir.net>:
Hi Chris,
 
>>  Yes, that's exactly right. Reading Chris's reply I started to suspect I'm using the Workspace for what it wasn't made for: I test various snippets in the Workspace and put down expectations, notes, results etc, to be copied to some document later. Checking standard menus I can't see any text editor - have I missed something important here? (I learn by myself so the clues in the system are crucial for me)

> Yes, you can use World | open... | file... or simply open Squeak's
FileManager browser and create and open the file there.  It's just as
functional as a Workspace, and you can save it and even append to it
if you want.
Thanks for pointing me to a text editor from a file, I was not aware of this functionality :)
 
Unfortunately there seem to be a couple of problems:
1) cancelling the accept menu opens a Debugger; I can't figure out how to fix this
2) the text editor differs from the Workspace at least in that it doesn't declare local variables automatically; I like to inspect variables after a do-it and I actually don't know how to work around this at the moment...
3) the right-click menu has fewer options than Workspace's and is a bit inconsistent (e.g. the more... option is not the last one); it feels a bit "forgotten"... but having a text editor sounds like a good idea at any rate.
(Besides that I enjoy having Transcript embedded in the editor/workspace window to see messages from the experiments without always bringing Transcript to the front; but yes, that's my personal preference and I could embed it in a text editor too)
 

> Workspaces are intended for *short-term* experiments, but what you're
doing sounds more like long-term research that deserves something
better than a Workspace, something already able to persist.  It might
still be worth considering whether each of the various snippets you're
testing could be titled with its own method name on the class side of
a "MyWorkspaceOrganizer" class.  If so, it solves _everything_ we've
been talking about.  Backups.  Synchronicity.  Image crashes.  Etc.
It also enables method composition and you could even make versions of
it..
E.g. recently I’ve been playing with small things like
 
p := [Semaphore new wait] fork.
Processor yield.
p suspend.
p resume
 
p := [Semaphore new wait] fork.
Processor yield.
p suspend.
p
 
p := [Semaphore new wait] fork.
Processor yield.
p
 
p := [Semaphore new wait] fork.
Processor yield.
p resume
 
In this case the Workspace seemed most suitable. But for some real/larger work organizing the experiments in methods sounds like a good idea – thanks!

> > > I just realized being able to save Workspaces opens this can of worms of needing a stale-detection system in any case -- otherwise users will face this "doubt" every single time they launch the image. (Chris)

> > Yes, true, I know this feeling very well :) That's why I like Marcel's idea to append the accepted contents to the saved file rather than overwrite; it's a backup anyway so when a disaster (or doubt) strikes one can check the backups.

> The above-mentioned file features have an append feature, however, I
don't think that would help if the image crashed and you didn't save.
Marcel’s Workspace append has the cool feature it is timestamped so it’s easy to separate the latest accepted version of the Workspace :)
 
Thanks again for your tips!
 
Best,
Jaromir
 
 
From: Chris Muller <asqueaker at gmail.com>
Sent: Friday, January 28, 2022 1:56:46 AM
To: mail at jaromir.net <mail at jaromir.net>
Cc: squeak dev <squeak-dev at lists.squeakfoundation.org>; tim Rowledge <tim at rowledge.org>
Subject: Re: The Trunk: Morphic-mt.1852.mcz
 
> Yes, that's exactly right. Reading Chris's reply I started to suspect I'm using the Workspace for what it wasn't made for: I test various snippets in the Workspace and put down expectations, notes, results etc, to be copied to some document later. Checking standard menus I can't see any text editor - have I missed something important here? (I learn by myself so the clues in the system are crucial for me)

Yes, you can use World | open... | file... or simply open Squeak's
FileManager browser and create and open the file there.  It's just as
functional as a Workspace, and you can save it and even append to it
if you want.

Workspaces are intended for *short-term* experiments, but what you're
doing sounds more like long-term research that deserves something
better than a Workspace, something already able to persist.  It might
still be worth considering whether each of the various snippets you're
testing could be titled with its own method name on the class side of
a "MyWorkspaceOrganizer" class.  If so, it solves _everything_ we've
been talking about.  Backups.  Synchronicity.  Image crashes.  Etc.
It also enables method composition and you could even make versions of
it..

> > > I just realized being able to save Workspaces opens this can of worms of needing a stale-detection system in any case -- otherwise users will face this "doubt" every single time they launch the image. (Chris)
>
> Yes, true, I know this feeling very well :) That's why I like Marcel's idea to append the accepted contents to the saved file rather than overwrite; it's a backup anyway so when a disaster (or doubt) strikes one can check the backups.

The above-mentioned file features have an append feature, however, I
don't think that would help if the image crashed and you didn't save.

 - Chris
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