[squeak-dev] Replacing Transcript>>#show: by Keith' logging considered harmful

Klaus D. Witzel klaus.witzel at cobss.com
Sat Jul 4 14:41:28 UTC 2009


Keith,

I understand your response but would like to make clear some of the  
obvious consequences. Let's say that the Kitchen Sinkers Guild[tm]  
registers interest in your logging and attempts to replace  
Transcript>>#show: by your work.

They first start with (Smalltalk at: #Transcript put: ProtoObject  
basicNew) because they always wanted to try out what happens then. After  
the huge outcry in the community they then know that they got all possible  
attention and change that to (Smalltalk at: #Transcript put: KeithLogging  
basicNew) initialize. Of course they implement the old Transcript protocol  
in class KeithLogging as convenience methods. So things get released :)

Then after a while, people complain that every time they do world ->  
windows -> find a transcript, that KeithLogging no longer works :( This  
report creates a flood of reponses from people asking to protect world  
menu from unauthorized changes and Seldom On Board members have to step in  
and assign to a team the responsibility for reorganizing world menu  
access. The new team proposes something based on Spoon's imprinting  
mechanism but un-fortunately have to postpone implementation because of  
lack of time of some of their members :(

But in one of their messages, the world menu access team forgot to scrub  
the DS acronym and another guy chims in and (unwillingly, as usual) starts  
a debate on refactoring world menu access with DeltaStream recording,  
because then his streams can be distributed to other forks as well. He's  
not sure if 80% of the needs are covered but suggests to give it a try  
anyways. This guy talks soo often about itches and scratches that some  
lurkers begin to reveal their identity in squeak-dev and begin with  
voicing their concerns about the Scratch user interface, and that  
Smalltalk is probably doomed if nothing will ever be done against the  
wrong colors and unchangable buttons in Scratch.

This all creates such deluge of messages in squeak-dev that Seldom On  
Board members get really concerned and make a new announcement: that the  
community server has been, already and successfully, moved over to an  
iPhone, and that Squeak community is the first online community running  
all their community services on a single iPhone.

When asked what that would be good for (except the fame and fun of it) the  
Seldom On Board members suddenly arrange for another unplanned meeting and  
write up a manifesto which declares that now the rest of the world can get  
an iPhone contract *together* with Squeak community membership, and that  
that is the obvious way for inventing the future.

Meanwhile the world menu access team has hacked up some methods but due to  
incompatability with the new iPhone community server (or was it the iPhone  
shop policy) the project is abandoned :(

After a long period during which the world -> windows -> find a transcript  
problem got no attention at all, someone contributes a method which asks  
the user what s/he really wants: a Transcript or the KeithLogging  
instance. Without any further debate this gets released.

-------

Keith, I hope that in the above you can easily see that your proposal is  
infeasible. Sorry for no better news.

/Klaus


-- 
"If at first, the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it".  
Albert Einstein




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