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On 2/28/12 9:11 AM, Bob Arning wrote:
<blockquote cite="mid:4F4CFC9C.101@comcast.net" type="cite">
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<font face="Georgia">The first question is what it would mean in a
Smalltalk environment. His tree-drawing example seems to be more
of a complete "program" idiom. What would be the counterpart in
Smalltalk? If you were looking at a method and made some
changes, when and where would you expect to see the changes
reflected? If the method were already being run frequently (say
as a #step method), then you would see the changes in the World.
Recompile time is negligible, of course, and one could think
about using sliders to change numeric bits - if you think that
improves the experience significantly. But what if the method is
not being executed already, how do you say "I've made a change,
now run it?" What's the context? And if you think about his tree
example, that would likely be a number of methods in Smalltalk,
so there's not a natural way to look at the source all at once.<br>
<br>
</font></blockquote>
<br>
Actually, it should be relatively trivial to provide a custom
"folded method" editing pane that is indexed by the methods in the
method list of the regular system browser. You can open individual
methods or all methods and scroll to them manually, or click on the
method name and scroll to it specifically.<br>
<br>
More importantly, recompiling during slider changes could also be
done reasonably easily, again, with a custom pane that evokes the
slider when you click on a number. The total "liveness" of executing
changes as they are typed might be more difficult to recreate.
Perhaps typing the enter key... <br>
<br>
<blockquote cite="mid:4F4CFC9C.101@comcast.net" type="cite"><font
face="Georgia"> Of course, what does work a bit like that now is
EToys. Also, inspectors and explorers can often be used to tweak
values of running code, so the dichotomy of compile-and-run vs
immediate-feedback is one that has already been largely bridged.<br>
</font><br>
</blockquote>
Sure. This would be a somewhat specialized tool anyway. Most
applications don't need to record user events for playback, but
again, one could modify the standard browser to evoke the behavior
if specific classes and their subclasses were being edited.<br>
<br>
Lawson<br>
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