you may be interested to read bout classblueprint visualization of 
class to support their understanding;

http://www.iam.unibe.ch/~lanza/Downloads/Lanz01b.pdf


On 11 mai 04, at 13:26, michael.cole at nimiq.net wrote:

> Hi Sam,
>
> You bring up great points re: the power of Smalltalk. Within a method,
> one can often take in the context of any piece of code without the need
> to scroll. It seems cognitively plausible that this is a huge 
> efficiency
> in constructing the mental model of the logic that is the method.
>
> Michael
> Sam Adams <ssadams at us.ibm.com> wrote:
>
>> Steve Burbeck gathered a lot of metrics on Digitalk Smalltalk years 
>> ago.
>> We had lots of discussions about the squidgy issues mentioned.
>> We decided to measure message sends per method, which over the entire 
>> image
>> averaged to 6.  In most cases these methods where less that 6 lines 
>> long,
>> including method header, comments and blank lines.
>>
>> I've seen lots of really long methods in Squeak as opposed to Digitalk
>> Smalltalk, but I would bet the average is still around those numbers. 
>>  The
>> really interesting thing about that figure is that it almost 
>> guarantees
>> that the vast majority of methods will be readable at a glance, 
>> assuming
>> the programmer used decent naming practices.
>>
>> Another interesting observation about the nature of Smalltlak code is 
>> the
>> environmental impact of nearly all method code being written in a 
>> browser
>> with a relatively small edit pane.  Since you can see most method 
>> source at
>> a glance in the browser without scrolling, you tend to write methods 
>> that
>> way, too.  This "above the fold" influence of the design of the IDE 
>> has had
>> a huge impact on the inherent simplicity of most Smalltalk code, 
>> though it
>> was probably an artifact of low res displays and the desire to have 
>> several
>> windows/browsers visible at once, IMHO.
>>
>> Regards,
>> Sam
>>
>> Sam S. Adams, IBM Distinguished Engineer, IBM Research
>> tie line 444-0736, outside 919-254-0736, email: ssadams at us.ibm.com
>> <<Hebrews 11:6, Proverbs 3:5-6, Romans 1:16-17, I Corinthians 1:10>>
>