[SoC] SOC: New IDEs

[Keith Hodges]

edited as requested - Keith
=====================================================================
+ Title/Summary: New Squeak IDE System Browser and Inspector
+ Organization: Squeak
+ Link to Further Information:

***** Abstract (2500 character limit, text only, no HTML)
The Abstract of an accepted student application is displayed on the
public GSoC web site.  Please do not include personal information.

    The aim of the project is to improve current IDE tools to
support user defined refactoring and code transformation.  The new IDE
tools will better assist the user's daily work with tasks such as the 
creation of common methods and fixing errors. The new IDE tools will 
include rich and easy to use refactoring functions. This will make 
refactoring accessible to the developer providing an important tool for 
improving the quality of applications.

    The new IDE tools will also support Traits. Traits are a new 
facility for partitioning source code for reuse in multiple classes. The 
tools will enabling browsing and editing of traits and also provide 
refactorings that understand the facilities provided by traits.
Supporting Traits in the IDE tools will help programmers to learn and 
adopt these new techniques.

***** Detailed Description (7500 character limit, text only, no HTML)
The Detailed Description of a student application is visible only to
mentors and will not be displayed on the public GSoC web site.

    This project will extend the current IDEs in order to allow fast
coding, support for Traits and graphic features to show the user
the type of class or method. The tools set of the new IDE will contains 
a System Browser and an Inspector.

    The System Browser will support user defined actions and the display 
of class and methods. It will have effects like: "I am a GUI class.  If 
you double click on me, I will open myself.  From context menu you can 
open GUI Painter." or "I am a class/method and have changed against last 
revision.", and so on.  It will be possible to display inherited 
methods, method categories, hierarchical structure, and category 
structure.  Tabs as used in Firefox applications will be implemented also.

	The implementation will include: standard refactoring functions, 
getters, setters, Shout technology, and code completion. Lots of other 
useful functions like moving a method/variable from the class side to 
instance side, displaying where a variable is used, a tool for method 
renaming, and another for automatic method category assignment.

	The Inspector will have OmniBrowser like structure so it will be
possible to quickly examine the structure of inspected object.  The 
Inspector will have a workspace for command execution and a method list 
of the currently inspected object. TheInspector will support fast 
browsing through object references and it will have support for removing 
and adding new instances to collections.

    I am a PhD student at Czech Technical
University in Prague.  I am interested in object oriented development
and Smalltalk is a really good language for this.  This
project is good challenge for me to improve my abilities in Squeak and 
the improvements to squeak will be helpful to enable Squeak to be 
adopted in schools in the Czech Republic.

I would like to be able to create really good applications for teaching 
data modelling. This project will enable a new way of thinking and using 
applications of this type in Squeak.

I will need to learn more about Squeak, and due to the financial support 
provided by GSoC, I will be able to work full time learning Squeak and 
progressing with this project over the summer.



	
	
		
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