Hi Hannes,

I'm not talking about an instrumentation problem, I'm not having
problems with finding things, the comment was intended to note that
there whatever you may write with < .. > you may write it with real
Smalltalk messages.

It's just a matter of finding the objects, and sometimes, adapting the tools.

Hernán

2010/4/30 Hannes Hirzel <hannes.hirzel at gmail.com>:
> The <...> syntax is already there. In fact since 3.9.
>
> Go to class Pragma in 4.1, bring up the class comment. At the bottom
> you find the following
>
> To browse ALL methods with pragmas in the system evaluate
>        SystemNavigation default browseAllSelect: [:m| m pragmas notEmpty]
>
> and to browse all nonprimitive methods with pragmas evaluate
>        SystemNavigation default browseAllSelect: [:m| m primitive isZero
> and: [m pragmas notEmpty]]
>
> These are actually not so many.
>
>
> You mention an example
>
> <menu ...>
>  <primitive...>
>  <documentation ... >
>  <test ...>
>  <.. put any meta "annotation" you like here ...>
>
>  ...and finally Smalltalk code .....
>
>
> Yes this is the direction things seem to head .....
>
> --Hannes
>
> On 4/30/10, Hernán Morales Durand <hernan.morales at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Hi Travis,
>>
>> Why do people need or want a different syntax for just another new
>> object? I imagine one day where Smalltalk programmers are forced to
>> write methods like:
>>
>>>>selector
>>
>>    <menu ...>
>>    <primitive...>
>>    <documentation ... >
>>    <test ...>
>>    <.. put any meta "annotation" you like here ...>
>>
>>    ...and finally Smalltalk code .....
>>
>> In this tag-oriented world, I don't like to write tags, if that were
>> the case I would switch to Java and all those XML they love so much.
>> Note that changing language it's not just changing syntax, it's a new
>> form of connectionism thinking which entails loss of knowledge, even
>> in nonnatural languages.
>>
>> Hernán
>>
>> 2010/4/29 Travis Griggs <travisgriggs at gmail.com>:
>>> Weighing in on a 2 day dead topic is probably passe` around here... :)
>>>
>>> I can weigh in with some practical/historical experience from VisualWorks
>>> land, where they originated.
>>>
>>> 1) We use them more and more. But judiciously. What they are really good
>>> for
>>> is defining programatic categorization of methods, so that one can
>>> discover
>>> programatically subsets of behavior that a given Behavior implements.
>>> Examples include the obvious <settings..> and <menu..> sort of things. We
>>> use them in the RefactoringBrowser to make certain aspect easily
>>> pluggable,
>>> such as adding your own tool pane, navigator pane, or status pane. The
>>> inspector uses them to support arbitrary inspector fields on any object.
>>> We
>>> even use them in <test>s, because I've found that you tend to make better
>>> test selector names, when your brain isn't trying to negotiate coming up
>>> with a good selector name that describes what your test does AND begins
>>> with
>>> the 4 characters 'test'. I used them in production code more and more when
>>> I
>>> was at Key writing UIs and control systems for optical food sorting
>>> equipment.
>>>
>>> Why not just use a method categories (protocols)? Because you can't quite
>>> put enough information there to make them useful, and they're stuck with
>>> just one category. You want simplicity and judicious application,
>>> deferring
>>> to good ol' messages as much as possible, but simple categories just don't
>>> provide enough.
>>>
>>> 2) I push, at ever juncture I can, the term <tagged methods> and <method
>>> tags>. The <tag> term grew on me for a set of reasons. Technically, they
>>> result in "AnnotatedMethods", and one can call each item an "Annotation".
>>> But that's a big long word, and using small short words always keeps
>>> things
>>> simpler. I also liked the harmony with the fact that we live in a world
>>> dominated by <tag><markup><languages> and they're called tags there. Since
>>> we were using roughly the same syntax, why not go with it? It's also
>>> easier
>>> to draw an icon that shows up next to methods for <tagged methods> than it
>>> is for <annotated methods> (see attached pic).
>>>
>>> 3) You can get carried away with <method tags>. It's tempting to grow
>>> little
>>> micro-DSLs with these things. They don't scale well for that. They're far
>>> from turing complete, and you're limited to literal objects. Best example
>>> of
>>> this is the nightmare that the method tags for menus were turning into VW.
>>> I
>>> wrote about this here:
>>>
>>> http://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/userblogs/travis/blogView?showComments=true&printTitle=Menu_Items_Are_Objects_Too&entry=3354355944
>>>
>>> 4) History repeats itself, I think I wrote a post along these lines, about
>>> 3+ years ago. I've slept since then tho, so I'm not sure.
>>>
>>> --
>>> Travis Griggs
>>> Objologist
>>> "The best way to know you have a mind is to change it" -Judge Pierre Leval
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>
>