Smalltalk class heirachy
John Pierce
john.raymond.pierce at gmail.com
Tue Dec 7 13:50:12 UTC 2004
> Dynamic tools are what you need old chap - paper and sourcecode files
> are the quaint relics of dinosaurian software fudging. We haven't done
> that stuff since, ooh, 1972 or so ... surely nobody does that stuff
> these days, not even those java chappies down the hall?
As a programmer -- I agree. Give me the darn browser over any printed
documentation where I can perform a dynamic analysis and editing. But
as a designer, I can often make subjective and objective evaluations
and draw conclusions of a class hierarchy more quickly by seeing it in
UML or the like. You know, funny things like duplication can jump out
at you when seeing a UML, where they remain hidden in a code browser.
Lastly, I work in a regulated environment that has been unwilling to
do away with old paper relics. So while I've been pushing it off, I
will eventually have to develop a class diagram for documentation
purposes of how we use Smalltalk in our regulated systems (ugh! -- do
you sense my hesitancy).
So what intrigues me about Squeak is that of all the tools / languages
I've ever used I think we have an enormously powerful environment in
Squeak to build class diagrams more easily and more wonderfully than
any other class-based language I've used. What baffles me is that no
one has worked up a class diagraming tool by now. I mean, could this
be more than an evening or weekend project?
I'll be the first to admit that I haven't undertaken this either, but
it just intrigues me, and maybe I will have to brush up on my SVG
skills and render some class diagrams.
Regards,
John
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