Dynamic Object Document Browsing ( was Class Comments )

Alek alek at acvilon.com
Tue Feb 10 01:36:51 UTC 1998


            Les Tyrrell ' s message is really impressive ( i think )!

>Is anyone else out there interested in the same thing, or interested in
>a collaboration project on something like this?  It would be trivial
>for me to set up and host a wiki on this topic.

Of course i am interested !

I think that Smalltalk is the best language ever created .But when i was
15 years old i read " The Feynman lectures on physics " and i learn the
most important lesson for science : There is no way to do it repeating
someone other's steps , words and theories .And that understanding is
different thing from repetition.
I think that right framework for O-O programing is Category Theory
not classes (in mathematical sense of  word) and there is not (a single)
hierarchy , in fact hierarchy is just one from many possible connections
between objects  , classes . . . . (and single inheritance doesn't change
anything here ). I think that "Show all (classes)" is as bad as "Show
no one "(like in old C++ IDEs) when classes in system are much more
than one can use . In this case there are many hierarchies and many
Smalltalks simply becouse larger part from the system is outside one's
interest .What i want to say is that in Squeak there are already too much
classes (and messages )and it's easy to lose yourself  . . . .i have a book
from 1984 year with some chapters for Smalltalk and there are ~ 50 classes
with no more than 3 - 4 levels of inheritance  - in this case Browse(find) -
try - finish(add new class\message) looks great and reasonable .
I think that with adding new classes and messages system become more and
more unstable and integration with VR and modularized image are steps . . .
"in the future" but Browser is not a tool for managing the different views
on
system . . . .it is just code manager. There must be a different tool for
managing
selection of  right subsystem for solving diferent tasks . . . something
like
installation wizards for Windows apps . . . ??? Or completely new UI ?
It's obvious that adding in system code that is not really needed make
codebrowsing difficult task . . . . for mi extensibility of Smalltalk
/Squeak
systems is central interest now .

Sorry for bad english and thanx to anyone who read this message.

Later i 'll send a larger mail on category theory O-O programing and
Smalltalk -
possibly. If anyone already think on that please send me a mail.







More information about the Squeak-dev mailing list