[squeak-dev] The Inbox: Kernel-cmfcmf.1251.mcz

Chris Muller asqueaker at gmail.com
Tue Aug 6 20:04:49 UTC 2019


On Tue, Aug 6, 2019 at 3:18 AM Marcel Taeumel <marcel.taeumel at hpi.de> wrote:

> One can always send any message to any receiver. :-)
>

Sure, a Smalltalk developer gets that.  But from the context of what's
meaningful to a Dynabook user simply interested in using Squeak objects as
an app, they simply know they don't want to see that "does not understand"
error message.  "Can send" is synonymous enough with that.  But my main
point is not about what exact words, but about the idea of speaking to that
specific audience through the #firstComment.


>
> The question is whether the answer can be meaningful or not. Can a client
> expect a meaningful answer from such a message send?
>

Right.  The thrust of my post is that the "client" in your statement above
is a Dynabook user, and _not_ a Smalltalk developer.


> Neither mentioning method dictionary nor superclasses help figure out when
> and why to send #respondsTo: to an object. Only Behavior is the domain and
> place to talk about method dictionary and superclasses. The comment in
> #canUnderstand: does already mention method dictionary and superclasses.
>

Users are only concerned with "sending messages to objects", nothing else.
Those Dictionary's are below the level of what they care about.  Even the
notion of inheritance (superclasses) will cause their eyes to glaze over.
Sending messages to concrete instances is where the rubber meets the road.
The #firstComment is a opportunity to open up the Squeak class-library to a
new group of people, without affecting our ability to talk to Smalltalk
developers in the 2nd - nth comments.  But most of the time, I'm sure the
one single user-centric comment is sufficient for both groups.

 - Chris



>
> Just my two cents. :-)
>
> Best,
> Marcel
>
> Am 06.08.2019 07:00:19 schrieb Chris Muller <asqueaker at gmail.com>:
> Hi there, as we go to fix comments, may we take the opportunity to see if
> we'd like to change the nature of the comment in general?
>
> Here's where I'm going:  "built-in documentation".  For all #firstComments
> anyway, in methods throughout the system, if we would direct those
> particular comments toward the *Dynabook user*, something like:
>
>    "Answer whether the receiver can be sent a message named aSymbol."
>
> then relatively simple systems can easily extract it to help connect users
> to a Dynabook experience.  Separate comments can be used to describe the
> 'dictionarys' or whatever implementation if desired, but since they
> wouldn't be the #firstComment, they wouldn't be presented in the user layer.
>
> It's a simple but powerful leverage, what do you think?
>
> Best,
>   Chris
>
> On Mon, Aug 5, 2019 at 9:39 AM <commits at source.squeak.org> wrote:
>
>> A new version of Kernel was added to project The Inbox:
>> http://source.squeak.org/inbox/Kernel-cmfcmf.1251.mcz
>>
>> ==================== Summary ====================
>>
>> Name: Kernel-cmfcmf.1251
>> Author: cmfcmf
>> Time: 5 August 2019, 4:39:08.95825 pm
>> UUID: eb7ae4e2-7697-7745-b4c3-4f9ce5975e2b
>> Ancestors: Kernel-mt.1250
>>
>> Clarify comment in Object>>respondsTo: to indicate that the method can
>> also be defined in a superclass.
>>
>> =============== Diff against Kernel-mt.1250 ===============
>>
>> Item was changed:
>>   ----- Method: Object>>respondsTo: (in category 'class membership') -----
>> + respondsTo: aSymbol
>> +       "Answer whether the method dictionary of the receiver's class or
>> any of its superclasses contains
>> - respondsTo: aSymbol
>> -       "Answer whether the method dictionary of the receiver's class
>> contains
>>         aSymbol as a message selector."
>>
>>         ^self class canUnderstand: aSymbol!
>>
>>
>>
>
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