+1

UI widgets are a solved problem. It is part of the operating system. 
Like writing a file system is done, writing UI widgets is done too.

I know in Smalltalk, the turtles go all the way down. But perhaps they 
don't need to go down quite as far as they currently do.

This is me, writing as a professional Smalltalk developer, watching 
Squeak and waiting for that moment when Squeak becomes a contender and 
we can (possibly) port our application to it.

Daniel Poon

Dan Shafer wrote:
> Please don't read this message if you don't have time or inclination for 
> a quasi-philosophical ramble down Smalltalk Lane. I'm posting this here 
> to share some experiences I doubt are new or unique but which I haven't 
> seen discussed here in the many months I've been back on the list.
> 
> I have been involved in Smalltalk on and off for a good many years. It 
> keeps calling me back, like the Sirens, whenever I go in search of a new 
> tool because the one I'm engaged in at that moment falls short or 
> disappoints or just annoys me. As a result of this on-again, off-again 
> love affair with Smalltalk and Squeak, I'm far from as proficient a 
> coder or knowledgeable a designer as I would certainly be by now if I'd 
> stayed put here. But I haven't been able to do that, for a host of 
> reasons that are mostly boring and unique so I won't relate them here.
> 
> Today I had a conversation with a colleague and friend I had referred to 
> Squeak as a possible solution to a specific set of problems he is 
> working on for a client. He spent a full day exploring Squeak and he 
> came back with an observation that I found difficult to answer. "Why," 
> he asked me in all sincerity, "is Squeak so ugly? Smalltalk has been 
> around 30 years. It's been in the hands of great design firms like Apple 
> and Disney. It's had IBM backing. Doesn't anyone in the Squeak community 
> understand how a polished, modern user interface would help to sell 
> their technology? Other than wxSqueak, which seems basically moribund [I 
> disabused him of this notion in our conversation, but that was his 
> finding on his own], there's nobody out there talking, thinking or 
> working on a professional-looking UI for Squeak's IDE or for deployment 
> of applications! What's going on there?"
> 
> So I spent a couple of hours looking at the question he raised and what 
> I *think* I learned is that because of the way Smalltalk implements 
> graphics at some deep level beyond my ability to penetrate the image, 
> modifying its basic UI to use a more modern and reactive user experience 
> would be a major, major challenge. After 30+ years, there is no way to 
> do native UI widgets (other than wxSqueak if and when it gets finalized 
> and hopefully incorporated) let alone custom widgets that look polished 
> and professional. I was able to determine that there appears to be a 
> class (PNGReadWriter) that would facilitate the import of PNG images, 
> e.g., to use as controls. With enough time and understanding, I could 
> presumably figure out how to import a graphic (PNG or other) and make it 
> behave like a button, but then getting it into an app layout would 
> require another level of understanding.
> 
> You get the idea. (And please don't spend time telling me how to do that 
> particular task; I don't have the expertise or interest anyway. It was 
> merely an illustration of what the problem appears to be.)
> 
> I explained to my friend that Squeak has been used primarily for 
> research and education, not for the creation and deployment of 
> commercial applications where a standardized platform-specific UI was 
> important. For him, that's a reason to avoid Squeak altogether.
> 
> So with that (probably overly long) background, I can ask my question, 
> on my friend's behalf.
> 
> Why, after 30 years, does Squeak still appear to be a non-standard, 
> almost toy-like user experience in the IDE? Is it the case that changing 
> that would be far too complex to undertake? Or is it that the community 
> of Squeak users just isn't largely motivated to worry about this 
> subject? Or is the absence of an economic incentive the problem? Or IS 
> there a problem?
> 
> Thanks for any wisdom you can share. This is one of the two big 
> objections I *always* get when I recommend someone look at Squeak as a 
> possible solution to a problem for which it appears to me to be ideally 
> suited linguistically and architecturally.
> 
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> 
> Dan Shafer
> Technology Visionary - Technology Assessment - Documentation
> "Looking at technology from every angle"
> 
> 
> 
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