To Traits Or Not To Traits (Was: Re: Stefs roadmap for 3.9, time to get it nailed down)

goran.krampe at bluefish.se goran.krampe at bluefish.se
Thu Feb 24 14:43:00 UTC 2005


Hi Nathanael!

=?iso-8859-1?Q?Nathanael_Sch=E4rli?= <n.schaerli at gmx.net> wrote:
> Hi guys,
> 
> > Nathanael and adrian will certainly reply in length here.
> > What I can tell you is that it is possible to have traits as package 
> > but this is a sweet dream because each time the kernel will changes 
> > then you will have to fix traits.
> 
> I agree with Stef. While it would be possible to have Traits as a
> package, I don't think that this is a good idea for several reasons.
> First, it would mean a lot of care and work to make sure that provide a
> package that is compatible with newer Squeak releases. More importantly,
> I think that it kind of defeats the prupose of a langauage extension
> like traits if it is optional because this means that one cannot take
> advantage of it in any of the non-optional code. 

This is what I thought - I just want to hear it spelled out. :)
 
> However, the good news is that even if traits are part of the basic
> image, people do not have to use and deal with them if they do not want
> to. So, there really should be no disadvantage/change for people who
> just want to ignore them. But as I said in my last email, I agree that

I would like to hear more about that. Let me take the role of a
Traits-hater here:

- Can I use the standard libraries and not know about Traits? Before you
say "yes" :) think it through, for example, if I edit a method in a
class that comes from a Trait (I haven't read all your papers yet, but I
did try to print some of it) what happens? Am I editing the Trait? And
then I am affecting other classes using it? So I am guessing (just
guessing) that people *do* need to know about Traits (if we use them for
standard libraries) or else they will get confused. Correct?

- If I don't use Traits and don't use any libraries using Traits (given
that no standard libraries use them) and if I... use ordinary browsers
etc. What is the effect on me? Does Traits have any effect then at all?
Just asking to get a feel for this.

- Does the old tools work if we introduce Traits or do they all break?
:) 

> we should go step by step, and the next step is a beta that allows
> people to see what it would mean to have traits in the image. I'm sure
> that this will make things a lot less scary...

Yes, perfect. So can we then decide on that - first a beta (or alpha or
whatever you like to put in our hands) - then we take first look, and
then probably solicit some feedback from stakeholders.

As a first rough plan. Ok?
 
> Cheers,
> Nathanael

Cheers, Göran



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