On Jan 2, 2008 7:05 PM, Igor Stasenko <siguctua at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 02/01/2008, Randal L. Schwartz <merlyn at stonehenge.com> wrote:
> > >>>>> "Ralph" == Ralph Johnson <johnson at cs.uiuc.edu> writes:
> >
> > Ralph> People talk about language changes all the time, but they rarely
> > Ralph> happen.  If you want to change Squeak, it is easier to do it by
> > Ralph> changing tools or libraries, not by changing the language.
> >
> > Agreed.
> >
> > As I said a few months ago
> > in http://www.nabble.com/forum/ViewPost.jtp?post=12469219&framed=y
> >
> >   I just don't like version creep in languages.  Smalltalk has remained
> >   relatively stable for nearly 3 decades.  Anything to disrupt that has got to
> >   meet a pretty high standard for me personally.
> >
>
> As i suspected, this discussion is going to nowhere, because of
> conservative people like you.
> There is no point to prove anything, if people simply don't want to
> change anything.
> If you don't want to change, don't want to move on, then squeak's
> destiny is to vanish and be forgotten when last living mammoth will
> die.
>
> Do we need a better tools/ways for delivering content(documentation)
> to developers? Yes we are!
> So, please, can you, instead of rejecting proposals, which are
> incompetent or which can't stand under pressure of your high
> standards, propose own solution?
>
>
> --
> Best regards,
> Igor Stasenko AKA sig.

There is something to be said for progress but one still has to think
*how* to progress.  There are plenty of examples of people making
progress in the wrong direction and messing everything up.

In this case, why do we need compiler changes?  If we want to make the
documentation more explicit wouldn't a better solution to add some
extra machinery into the code browser?  Some extra indicators could
appear for methods, class or what ever that have documentation
associated with them.  The possibilities are endless.

Personally I have never liked the idea of "documentation methods".
For me that is a very load "we have no better way to do this" smell.
And given the malleability of Squeak there is no reason to not have a
better way (well, besides time of course, but adding something like
this can't be too much more involved then a bunch of compiler
changes).