On Jan 31, 2008, at 12:27 , Blake wrote:

> On Wed, 30 Jan 2008 22:59:54 -0800, Jason Johnson <jason.johnson.
> 081@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On Jan 31, 2008 3:58 AM, Blake <blake@kingdomrpg.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>         You say this almost like it's a bad thing. It's only bad
>>> when people do (a), and if they do (a) anyway,
>
>> I think doing (a) is a bad thing.  Anyone can do (a) to a new
>> technology (I know I have, even to Smalltalk once upon a time),
>> and to
>
> Indeed, we agree.
>
>> me that means they are not ready to look at it.  Moving the wall only
>> changes what they complain about.
>
> Also agreed.
>
>> If one is too accommodating one
>> ends up changing Smalltalk to be source file based instead of image
>> based so newbies understand what's going on better.
>
> Squeak isn't source file based, and I doubt any form of
> presentation could make it so. (Though, I guess maybe if you had
> the Smalltalk OS, it would probably host something like a source-
> file based scripting system. Or something.<s>)
>
> I'm talking presentation and navigation. And it's come up as I've
> wended my way through the Laser Game tutorial. It actually inspired
> me to try to come up with a modification that would make building
> tutorials a lot clearer and easier.
>
>> That sounds to me like an indication that the Smalltalk browser needs
>> some of the keyboard shortcuts your other environments have.  I
>> suppose you achieve some of this by simply dumping a bunch of methods
>> in one text area, but wouldn't it be better to attack the root of the
>> problem?
>
> Well, look, I'm not one to turn down hot keys. I think Bert and I
> must operate in very different ways, and it wouldn't surprise me to
> find that there are many different styles of coding. (Or maybe
> there are just two: Bert's and mine.<s>)

I'm not entirely sure how my name got dragged into this conversation
- but I do agree with the rest of your post. Setting up a context
that lets you focus on what you're currently working on is helpful.
There should be a browser that just shows your "working set", like a
couple of packages that make up your application. I used such a
browser framework 10 years ago (Application Management Browser IIRC)
and it worked nicely, basically each tool had a little checkbox
switching the filter to your current app on and off. Very handy.

What I find is that experienced Smalltalkers blend out those
distractions mentally, they only "see" the interesting parts. For
them it's easy to spot the one interesting sender in a list of a
hundred methods, or the stack frame in a debugger 10 places from the
top where the error actually happened. But I also see Newbies being
overwhelmed by the lack of separation between the system and their
code. So improved tools are welcome :)