Michael-

I guess it is a matter of priorities. This is important to me. Plus we don't
have broadcast TV. :-)

Also, which is more productive? Writing a seven page email which gets
ignored by most and *hopefully* trashed as advocating a design which is
uninformed or redundant or massively incomplete by a few people who are
really clued in on these issues (like yourself or Igor or whoever), [thanks
for your comments, Igor] or spending a person-year making such a system and
only then finding out after the fact it is uninformed, redundant, or
massively incomplete? After a dozen years, the Squeak ecosystem of projects
and people is so diverse it is hard to know what everyone is up to or has
done (and I've been away from it for quite a while in Python-land).

Obviously, writing code is more productive, if it gets used. But the problem
I am concerned about here is in part people writing code for Squeak (e.g.
with or without traits) and it being lost. You can have a lot of time to
write and read long emails if you don't write a lot of code which just ends
up getting thrown away instead. :-)

Of course, for most programmers reading and writing code is more enjoyable
than reading and writing design documents (or related documents).

I do write code (eventually. :-) And I am at this point of needing design
feedback precisely because of some code (PataPata) I was ultimately unhappy
with (though I thought it was a productive experiment, since you learn from
experiments whether they succeed or fail).

Still, I'll concede as in a previously supplied link relating to Chandler
that designs are always fraught with the peril that they missed some key
idea you only find out deep in implementation which makes the whole project
pointless. Still, an experienced designer is able to a limited extent to
simulate a paper design in his or her head and get as feel for it, at least
to the point of seeing obvious incompletenesses. But ultimately, it is true,
the proof of a design idea is in working and useful code.

--Paul Fernhout

Michael van der Gulik wrote:
> For the record, that email was 382 lines long or about 7 pages if printed,
> and it's just one of many of your posts!
> 
> How /do/ you manage to write so much stuff in a day, Paul!? I wish I could
> be as productive.