On 22 January 2015 at 20:26, Chris Muller <asqueaker at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thu, Jan 22, 2015 at 11:46 AM, Tobias Pape <Das.Linux at gmx.de> wrote:
>>
>> On 22.01.2015, at 18:32, Nicolas Cellier <nicolas.cellier.aka.nice at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>
>>> 2015-01-22 9:30 GMT+01:00 Frank Shearar <frank.shearar at gmail.com>:
>>> On 22 January 2015 at 08:25, Tobias Pape <Das.Linux at gmx.de> wrote:
>>> >
>>> > On 22.01.2015, at 09:22, Frank Shearar <frank.shearar at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> >
>>> >> On 21 January 2015 at 23:48,  <commits at source.squeak.org> wrote:
>>> >>> Tobias Pape uploaded a new version of Environments to project The Trunk:
>>> >>> http://source.squeak.org/trunk/Environments-topa.56.mcz
>>> >>>
>>> >>> ==================== Summary ====================
>>> >>>
>>> >>> Name: Environments-topa.56
>>> >>> Author: topa
>>> >>> Time: 22 January 2015, 12:48:30.677 am
>>> >>> UUID: e5cad590-2869-4f02-84ac-482952779d06
>>> >>> Ancestors: Environments-topa.55
>>> >>>
>>> >>> Provide more Dictionary protocol for exisiting users of Smalltalk globals.
>>> >>
>>> >> If it addresses, in an expedient way, existing problems, then fine.
>>> >> But the Environments work was explicitly trying to move _away_ from
>>> >> the Dictionary protocols. Hence why the existing Dictionary-like
>>> >> methods are in the "emulating" category.
>>> >
>>> > Refactoring-Core is using this API.
>>>
>>> Obviously making the rest of the world move to the Environments API is
>>> the _right_ thing to do, if it's manipulating environmental stuff, but
>>> in the meantime, +1 to this addition :)
>>>
>>> frank
>>>
>>>
>>> We can use the #deprecated: in the meantime so as to not forget
>>> - that we should change senders
>>> - that we should not use this API in new code
>>
>> I'm unsure.
>> I _really_ like the idea of treating a namespace as a dictionary.
>> But this is just gut feeling.
>
> My first reaction was similar to Frank's, but then I remembered that
> this is Tobias who, I think, has worked on some of the HP's projects
> like Code Talk and other cool IDE and development tools.
>
> That made me more empathetic to Tobias' gut feeling -- because by
> being able to have an API consistent with a general collection, it may
> have facilitated the implementation of some of these tools.
>
> So I concluded the "detractor" is not it _having_ Dictionary API, but
> by _using_ its Dictionary API from other places that could and should
> use higher-level Environments API.  We could simply not do that.

Yes, exactly.

frank