(moving to squeakland list)
On 14.04.2011, at 16:05, Markus Schlager wrote:
On Thu, 14 Apr 2011, Bert Freudenberg wrote:
On 14.04.2011, at 09:44, Markus Schlager wrote:
I'd suggest to rename the 'copy'-tile since it does return a new sibling but not a copy/duplicate. I think it would be useful if the label would state clearly this tile resembles a *new* sibling you can send messages to.
While this would be easy to change, I think it would make sense to discuss on the users list, not only the dev list.
FWIW, internally the operation is called "new clone".
Personally I would only change the balloon help. Most of the time it doesn't matter if it's a duplicate or a sibling.
Most of all I'm missing the *new* in the tile's label. It took me quite some time to understand the tile's behavior when I encoutered it for the first time.
Markus
To me, "copy" does imply creating a new object.
Also, it is only ever used as argument to another tile. I find the difference to be obvious:
Holder include Sketch
moves the Sketch into the Holder, whereas
Holder include Sketch copy
does not affect the Sketch itself, but adds a copy of it. I don't see how adding "new" would clarify this, but I'm happy to be convinced otherwise :)
- Bert -
On Thu, 14 Apr 2011, Bert Freudenberg wrote:
(moving to squeakland list)
On 14.04.2011, at 16:05, Markus Schlager wrote:
On Thu, 14 Apr 2011, Bert Freudenberg wrote:
On 14.04.2011, at 09:44, Markus Schlager wrote:
I'd suggest to rename the 'copy'-tile since it does return a new sibling but not a copy/duplicate. I think it would be useful if the label would state clearly this tile resembles a *new* sibling you can send messages to.
While this would be easy to change, I think it would make sense to discuss on the users list, not only the dev list.
FWIW, internally the operation is called "new clone".
Personally I would only change the balloon help. Most of the time it doesn't matter if it's a duplicate or a sibling.
Most of all I'm missing the *new* in the tile's label. It took me quite some time to understand the tile's behavior when I encoutered it for the first time.
Markus
To me, "copy" does imply creating a new object.
Also, it is only ever used as argument to another tile. I find the difference to be obvious:
Holder include Sketch
moves the Sketch into the Holder, whereas
Holder include Sketch copy
does not affect the Sketch itself, but adds a copy of it. I don't see how adding "new" would clarify this, but I'm happy to be convinced otherwise :)
- Bert -
Maybe you're right and 'new' isn't the actual issue.
In Etoys there are three words: duplicate, copy and sibling (and clone). And there are two tiles: 'copy' and 'tell all siblings'.
I'm not a native speaker, whence I must ask: Is 'copy' more like 'duplicate' or more like 'sibling'. The balloon help of the copy tile says 'returns a copy of this object'. What you get is a sibling. Is this rather a surprise? If not I'll probably have to change the German translation. There, 'duplicate' and 'copy' are translated the same way. If it is a surprise to English native speakers though, I'd suggest to rename the tile.
Markus
On Thu, Apr 14, 2011 at 7:12 PM, Markus Schlager wrote:
In Etoys there are three words: duplicate, copy and sibling (and clone). And there are two tiles: 'copy' and 'tell all siblings'.
I'm not a native speaker, whence I must ask: Is 'copy' more like 'duplicate' or more like 'sibling'. ... If it is a surprise to English native speakers though, I'd suggest to rename the tile.
Markus, I am an English native speaker. It is a surprise to me too. However, above, Bert wrote:
There is a tile named "copy". "Duplicate" is roughly equivalent to "playfield include: object copy". A difference is that for siblings, "copy" creates another sibling.
and later
Most of the time it doesn't matter if it's a duplicate or a sibling.
Therefore I agree with Bert's suggestion that only the balloon help should be changed. It seems to me that if a user is sufficiently advanced to use siblings programmatically, they will be able to figure out how to use the tile effectively despite its simplistic name.
David
squeakland@lists.squeakfoundation.org