[squeak-dev] Re: Refactoring Browser and Rewrite Engine for Squeak

Hernán Morales Durand hernan.morales at gmail.com
Fri May 14 04:12:23 UTC 2010


2010/5/12 Casey Ransberger <casey.obrien.r at gmail.com>:
> Colin,
> My comments are online below.
> On May 12, 2010, at 8:08 AM, Colin Putney <cputney at wiresong.ca> wrote:
>
> Why all the hate for OmniBrowser?
>
> It's not hate. OB is a cool piece of software. I'm very sorry if I've
> offended.
>
> Above, you seem to be saying, "I want a browser with the features that
> OmniBrowser has, but without the flexibility and modularity."
>
> I like the refactoring functionality that's there. The icons are nice, but I
> don't need them. Most folks have been talking about wanting a smaller, less
> complex base system in Squeak. OB strikes me as large and complex, which I
> think is a fair statement: it's complex because it does a lot.
>
> You're even suggesting that someone should do a lot of work (and yes, it
> *is* a lot of work) to reimplement the functionality that OB already
> provides.
>
> I suggested looking into how much work it would be to integrate the
> refactoring engine. Now that I think about it, we'd probably also need AST
> and Regex to use just that, wouldn't we? Three packages seems like a lot to
> add to the main Squeak distribution; may as well include OB too. I'd like to
> retract that statement. Mea culpa.
>
> By the way, there are quite a few other projects that use the OB framework.
> Off the top of my head:
>
> - Seaside use it for configuration
> - The Gemstone interface to Monticello is based on OB (runs great in
> Squeak!).
> - The Gemstone Test-Runner is based on OB (runs great in Squeak!).
> - Hernán Durand's Dependency Browser is based on OB
> - My FileBrowser package
> - OB-Tools, a debugger and inspector based on OB.
>
> I stand corrected. This maybe explains why I couldn't find the configuration
> manager panel anywhere when I last installed Seaside:) as this time I didn't
> have OB loaded.
>

You may check a browser of persisted objects I did some time ago,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxUaOFRHFPk

> Now, OB isn't perfect. It has issues and bugs just like any significant
> piece of software. But why not fix them, or at least complain so that others
> can fix them?
>
> I think the key word here is 'significant;' OB has a lot of moving parts.
> The more moving parts there are in an application, the more likely one of
> those moving parts is to break when something changes in a dependency (e.g.,
> Squeak, as has apparently already happened in 4.1.)
> Let me ask you a couple of questions: is OB currently developed on the
> Squeak platform? How many active developers does OB have?
> Most of the related posts I've seen in squeak-dev have been from confused
> folk wondering which packages to load in order to get it working, or from
> people wondering why something or other isn't working after picking some
> packages and loading them. My suspicion is that OB development is ongoing in
> Pharo. Are there enough interested people with the requisite knowledge to
> keep OB working in Squeak?

I would like to read more documentation about the implementation.

> IIRC, awhile back you (I'm pretty sure it was you) sent mail to the list
> about a .sar with an official release. I was really happy about that. I
> installed it at the time and everything seemed to be working. I went back a
> few weeks ago to hunt down that file, and (while I don't have the link
> handy) it seemed to be missing from the server. Where can I get the most
> recent Squeak compatible release of OB now?

Try

Installer installUrl: 'http://www.wiresong.ca/downloads/OmniBrowser-2.0.3.sar'.

it works fine for me in Squeak 4.1

> I'm wondering if it might work
> out better for some of the folks wanting to try out OB than playing Russian
> roulette with SqueakSource packages.
> Colin, I want to be clear: I have nothing against OmniBrowser; I've used it
> on and off and quite like it. I'm just against making it "the" browser in
> Squeak at this time, and I think it's rather large to include in the image
> just as an optional feature. In fact, just the other day, I threw in two
> cents saying that Regex should be in the standard image, and even that was
> met with friction.

I think newcomers wonder which Browser should use. Instead of choosing
a default browser I would present an optional wizard for configuring
basic preferences of Squeak. Then add in a step descriptions of each
browsers pros and cons and delegate to the users the decision. If the
browser they choose isn't installed, then install it on demand.

>
>
> Colin
>
>
>
>



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