On 06/25/2013 03:04 PM, Chris Muller wrote:
> By relating input actions to cursor status, the system can impart a
> lot information about what it's doing.

I think one important point worth stressing is that there's only one 
Cursor - it's a global ambient resource.

Concurrency is much more common these days than in it was in the time of 
ST80, so we should be moving toward being able to report on multiple 
ongoing activities at once. Cursor doesn't cut it here at all.

Seen from this perspective, the only remaining use for a real busy 
cursor is exactly the "beachball" case, similar to what Juan has 
implemented for Cuis. Travis and Vassili's remarks [1] are dead on.

Cheers,
   Tony

[1] 
http://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/userblogs/travis/blogView?showComments=true&printTitle=Cursor_consider_showWhile:_[Harmful]&entry=3432339015