[Q]Why 'browse' was removed?

Avi Bryant avi at beta4.com
Thu Mar 4 19:38:52 UTC 2004


On Mar 4, 2004, at 10:44 AM, ducasse wrote:

> Because it was introducing dependency between the browser and the core 
> of class. This is like having a popUp menu
> in the middle of some deep class functionality.

No, it's really not.  It doesn't introduce  any dependencies.  It's a 
completely separate method that isn't sent by any of the "core" methods 
of Object.  There's no reason to remove it.  If you're concerned about 
marking it as part of the Browser package rather than the Kernel 
package, we have mechanism for doing that - put it in a method category 
labelled '*tools-browser'.  But please, please, don't confuse which 
class a method is on with which package it's in.  You know better than 
that, Stef:  I expect that kind of argument from newbies complaining 
about #isMorph, not from a seasoned Smalltalker.  And "we don't have a 
package system in the base" is both incorrect (PackageInfo is meant for 
exactly this purpose) and a poor excuse (if we start destroying the 
design of the system because we don't have a package system now, how 
will we fix it once we do?).

I hugely appreciate the work that KCP does, but removing methods like 
that is counter productive.  Let's put it back, properly categorized, 
and if there are any similar removals that KCP has done we need to know 
about them so we can reverse them too.  Please.

Avi




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