We have the tools to do something that might feel more natural, at 
least to someone unused to the Smalltalk Paragraph Editor.  That is: 
we have balloons, as used in balloon help.  It seems to me a balloons 
would be a natural place to put an error message.  What I can't 
figure out is: when is the "natural" time to make the balloons 
disappear?  Probably not when you first put the cursor at the 
offending place, because you may not have fully read the contents 
yet.  But while you are editing, the balloon would be in the way.  It 
seems that in lined error messages that I can read or delete at will 
have advantages.

At 12:29 +0200 2001.05.13, Wiebe Baron wrote:
>
>Besides, having text inserted in your code can feel intrusive and having to
>press delete before you can edit your code doesn't seem make much cognitive
>sense. It's not that it's hard work, it's just the wrong kind of work!
>There's also a bit of inconsistency in that using an undefined variable in
>your code brings up a message box rather then an inlined message. Completely
>logical, but inconsistent never-the-less.
>
>Using inlined error messages seems to be the simplest solution to the
>problem and as a proponent of Occam's razor, I can live with it. Somewhere
>down the line we should look at better ways though, because as Einstein
>warns:
>
>"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler."



	Andrew