Editing class method sources in single place

Laurence Rozier laurence.rozier at gmail.com
Thu Jan 31 16:03:22 UTC 2008


On Jan 31, 2008 6:59 AM, Bert Freudenberg <bert at freudenbergs.de> wrote:

>
> On Jan 31, 2008, at 12:27 , Blake wrote:
>
> > On Wed, 30 Jan 2008 22:59:54 -0800, Jason Johnson <jason.johnson.
> > 081 at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> On Jan 31, 2008 3:58 AM, Blake <blake at kingdomrpg.com> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>         You say this almost like it's a bad thing. It's only bad
> >>> when people do (a), and if they do (a) anyway,
> >
> >> I think doing (a) is a bad thing.  Anyone can do (a) to a new
> >> technology (I know I have, even to Smalltalk once upon a time),
> >> and to
> >
> > Indeed, we agree.
> >
> >> me that means they are not ready to look at it.  Moving the wall only
> >> changes what they complain about.
> >
> > Also agreed.
> >
> >> If one is too accommodating one
> >> ends up changing Smalltalk to be source file based instead of image
> >> based so newbies understand what's going on better.
> >
> > Squeak isn't source file based, and I doubt any form of
> > presentation could make it so. (Though, I guess maybe if you had
> > the Smalltalk OS, it would probably host something like a source-
> > file based scripting system. Or something.<s>)
> >
> > I'm talking presentation and navigation. And it's come up as I've
> > wended my way through the Laser Game tutorial. It actually inspired
> > me to try to come up with a modification that would make building
> > tutorials a lot clearer and easier.
> >
> >> That sounds to me like an indication that the Smalltalk browser needs
> >> some of the keyboard shortcuts your other environments have.  I
> >> suppose you achieve some of this by simply dumping a bunch of methods
> >> in one text area, but wouldn't it be better to attack the root of the
> >> problem?
> >
> > Well, look, I'm not one to turn down hot keys. I think Bert and I
> > must operate in very different ways, and it wouldn't surprise me to
> > find that there are many different styles of coding. (Or maybe
> > there are just two: Bert's and mine.<s>)
>
> I'm not entirely sure how my name got dragged into this conversation
> - but I do agree with the rest of your post. Setting up a context
> that lets you focus on what you're currently working on is helpful.
> There should be a browser that just shows your "working set", like a
> couple of packages that make up your application. I used such a
> browser framework 10 years ago (Application Management Browser IIRC)
> and it worked nicely, basically each tool had a little checkbox
> switching the filter to your current app on and off. Very handy.
>
> What I find is that experienced Smalltalkers blend out those
> distractions mentally, they only "see" the interesting parts. For
> them it's easy to spot the one interesting sender in a list of a
> hundred methods, or the stack frame in a debugger 10 places from the
> top where the error actually happened. But I also see Newbies being
> overwhelmed by the lack of separation between the system and their
> code. So improved tools are welcome :)
>

SmalltalkAgents made an interesting and promising stab at a more flexible
toolset nearly two decades ago which worked well in many respects. However,
I think it helps to broaden the discussion and consider the impact of screen
real estate and human cognition in the context of
Croquet.<http://croquet.funkencode.com/2008/01/31/story-oriented-coding/>
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