+1, good list


>From: "Philippe Marschall" <philippe.marschall at gmail.com>
>Reply-To: The general-purpose Squeak developers 
>list<squeak-dev at lists.squeakfoundation.org>
>To: "The general-purpose Squeak developers 
>list"<squeak-dev at lists.squeakfoundation.org>
>Subject: Re: Towards a better IDE in Squeak
>Date: Sun, 18 Feb 2007 22:46:58 +0100
>
>2007/2/18, David Röthlisberger <squeak at c3com.ch>:
>>Hi all,
>>
>>I'm currently doing a PhD under the supervision of Stephane Ducasse and
>>Oscar Nierstrasz at the university of Bern, Switzerland. My main
>>research interests are in the context of Integrated Development
>>Environments (IDEs). I'm planning to work on the Squeak IDE to see how
>>the IDE of a dynamic object-oriented programming language can be
>>improved and extended.
>>Especially, I want to experiment with different metaphors to browse and
>>navigate source code, with new metaphors to present static (i.e.,
>>classes, methods, source code) as well as dynamic aspects (i.e.,
>>objects, relationships between objects, etc.) of a program in the same
>>IDE, with new ways to modify and edit source code, etc.
>>I believe that we can do more in a better way these days than what we
>>have in the current IDE in Smalltalk or in Java. I believe that the IDE
>>of the future can help the programmer to program more efficiently and
>>with less errors by giving him more insights into the program being
>>developed or by providing him with better tools and guides during his
>>daily work. I believe that what we have now as IDEs are far away from
>>what is possible to have and even far away from what we actually need to
>>be effective and efficient in our daily work. This is a bit sad for
>>Smalltalk, because a long time ago it had the best IDE, but now Eclipse
>>is getting better and better while the IDE of Smalltalk / Squeak stays
>>more or less the same. During my PhD I want to see how we can get
>>something better out of the current Squeak IDE.
>>
>>I write this message out of two reasons: First, I would like to know if
>>you have ideas for things that are missing in the current DIE of Squeak,
>>"things", tools, metaphors, ideas that you would like to see
>>implemented. What are your ideas of how an IDE could help you to work
>>more efficiently in your daily work? Where is the current IDE in your
>>way, where is it not good enough, what could be better? What do you
>>miss, what do you need to get a better IDE?
>>
>>Second, I would also like to do kind of empirical studies in the future
>>to somehow validate the effectiveness and efficiency of new approaches
>>for an IDE, hence I need subjects performing some experiments in these
>>future IDEs and I also need data about how you use your IDE (e.g., how
>>you browse source code, how and where you write source code, with which
>>tools, etc.). Will you be willing to provide me with these data recorded
>>by some non-invasive recordings tools you can simply load in your image
>>and which will then save the recorded data to a file which you would
>>then send to me? Are you also willing to perform some experiments in new
>>IDEs, e.g. trying and playing with them, use them for a project of
>>yours, etc.?
>>For me it is important to know if I can motivate enough people to do a
>>serious empirical study. Without that, I would have a hard time to
>>"prove" that a new approach to e.g. navigate source code is indeed
>>useful and promising, because this is very much dependent on personal
>>feelings and impressions. Only a broader study can hence "prove" the
>>general usefulness (or uselessness) of such a new approach or metaphor.
>>
>>Thanks for your help.
>
>Most things in this list are either taken form other IDEs or bugfixes,
>so they might not be interesting from a research point of view:
>
>- Scoping of implemtors/senders to packages
>- make class extensions work like in VW
>- make the submethod display more than just a text string. Why can't
>SLint just underline the code that violates a rule?
>- run SLint on a method once it is compiled (for error reporting see above)
>- bring Refactoring Engine to the point where the Eclipse Refactoring
>Engine is (code formatting and stuff)
>- a protocol browser that is actually usable (choose upper bound)
>- multiselection (including nil-selection)
>- make drag and drop work everywhere in the browser
>- make multiselection work with drag and drop
>- fix those annoying bugs in the browser where a method ends up in the
>wrong category (if you are lucky) when you are editing the same class
>in two browsers
>- fix the debugger (those annoying cases where you code ten minutes in
>the debugger accept it but the code lost because you where in a block
>or whatever)
>- "move to class/instance side" refactoring (yes I know this is
>technically not a refactoring, I don't care)
>- roel typer integration to display the "roel types" of variables
>- when changing the shape of a class only recompile the methods that
>actually access instance variables
>- method display plugins (eg. a profiler can draw a heatmap but just
>coloring the statements differently without the need to implement the
>whole index <-> statement mapping)
>- a better inspector that supports drag and drop and where you can
>drop objects in the evaluator pane
>- back-button
>- "make trait" refactoring (working together with multiselection)
>- trait support for refactoring engine
>- finish the traits browser
>- what is is the status of services to enable refactoring support in
>the omnibrowser? It it is not done then do it.
>- integrate services into the duo-systembrowser
>
>Cheers
>Philippe


>

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