Igor Stasenko wrote:
> 2009/11/17 Juan Vuletich <juan at jvuletich.org>:
>   
>> Igor Stasenko wrote:
>>     
>>> ...
>>> That's where we could choose one or another line endings etc.. but not
>>> in text editor, which is a nonsense because it deals with live
>>> objects.
>>>
>>>       
>> The editors in Squeak (in browsers, for example) deal with live objects:
>> instances of class String. They might include any sequence of characters.
>> Including those you don't like.
>>
>>     
>
> Squeak's Text editor operating with instances of Text, to be more
> precise. And Text instance is already far more than a String, but i
> think you know it yourself , so i wonder why you persist pointing me
> to Strings.
>   

Because it is irrelevant to what we were discussing.

> The issue we're arguing is about String <-> Text conversion, and
> internal representation of text in editor.
>   

That's the issue you're arguing about now. The original discussion was 
whether the editor should handle or not the line ending conversions our 
model objects already support.

> I stating, that we could completely get rid of any notion of controls
> characters in Text , as well as in text editors,
> and make implementation cleaner & leaner and free of any bizarre &
> cryptic character mangling.
> And then we could have only few places, where we should care about
> control chars: String <=> Text conversion and/or
> Stream <=> Text conversion.
>   

Yes, that would be possible. Of course, that doesn't preclude the editor 
to actually support our model objects.

>>>> In Squeak, the editor is the way a developer has to interact (i.e. edit)
>>>> String objects. It is not an end-user editor adapted to whatever end-user
>>>> needs you have in mind.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>         
>>> Hmm.. i was always thinking that text editor is for editing the text,
>>> not Strings. :)
>>>
>>>       
>> Then may be you're wrong.
>>
>>     
>>> Look, we write tools for users, but not for machine.
>>> Same as we should invent languages to serve for developers, not for
>>> compilers.
>>>
>>>       
>> Dev tools are for developers. That's what the base system is about. Not
>> about the machine, not about end-users. Just developers.
>>
>>     
>
> And who are the developers from text-editor point of view? Aren't they
> just users who need to edit a text?
> I barely see, where i could make use of editor which allows me to edit
> control chars.
>   

I never talked about control chars. We were talking about line ending 
conversions. A typical scenario is needing to edit ini files for real 
users that are stored in a server. I need to support users with Windows 
and Mac. And I want to leave the files as they need them. The best way 
to do that is with the Cuis editor. Then, I'm in control.

> During my lifetime experience as developer, i never had a need to deal
> with control characters in editor.
> I'd rather prefer to convert it before/after editing than inside an
> editor, or use binary editor, where i can see & change every byte.
>
> I didn't said that we won't need to deal with line endings, but please
> tell me, why it should be a text editor?
>   

I said it countless times now: Because it is the most comfortable tool 
to deal with String objects.

> I know, that TextEditor in Squeak tries to do everything at once.. but
> don't you think that maybe it is time to repurpose it for only text
> editing, while leave rest to other tools?
> Lets create & use a separate tools for that. Text editor - for editing
> a text. String/text converter - for conversion & dealing with line
> endings and other idiosyncrazy.
>   

No, I'd repurpose it only for string editing.

> And then both, developers and users will be pretty happy.
>   

Indeed.

Cheers,
Juan Vuletich