Squeak's "general acceptance"

Avi Bryant avi.bryant at gmail.com
Tue Jul 5 11:11:29 UTC 2005


On Jul 5, 2005, at 12:39 PM, Blake wrote:
>
> In just about any professional desktop development tool today, the  
> process of displaying DB data in form or grid format is nigh  
> automatic.  I can do it without a line of code, and I can do it  
> even if I've never seen the tool in my life.

And then what?  I'm not challenging your statement, I'm just curious:  
say you use one of these tools to display a grid of DB data without a  
line of code.  What's the process to then have a finished  
application?  Do you have to write some code at some point?  How far  
towards your final goal does that code-less grid take you, and how  
far do you have to then go with code?

In my personal experience, the tools that work best are those that  
either let you go all the way to where you're trying to get to  
without *ever* writing code (obviously this only works within a  
restricted domain, but it's great when it does), or those that  
acknowledge that you're going to have to write code at some point and  
so focus on making that as easy and productive as possible.  Whether  
or not I have to write "a line of code" to achieve the first 5% of my  
goal tends to be vastly overshadowed by whether I have to write 1000  
or 10000 or 100000 lines to accomplish the other 95%.  I may have  
more to show in VB than Squeak after an hour, but if it's a month  
long project I know which one I'd want to use.

It does make for nice demos, though.

At any rate, you're certainly right that Squeak is not a  
"professional desktop development tool".  If you're looking for one  
of those (and, I gather, on the Windows platform), try Dolphin.

Avi



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