[Vm-dev] instantiateClass:indexableSize: upper limit?

[Tom Beckmann]

Thanks a lot for the hints and the in-depth explanation!

Is there a best practice on how to deal with my scenario in the most
elegant way? Inside the primitive call I learn how much memory I need and
get the pointer to it. Calculating the size ahead of time is unfortunately
not possible. So in order to allocate the memory in squeak, I would have to
return the pointer from the primitive, right? Do I simply place it in an
integer or is there a dedicated data structure? Or do I have to go all the
way and return a handle that only lives for the duration of the two
primitive calls?

I second what Jakob said very much. I really like the HelpBrowser approach
and its possibility to just place do-it-able code inside it. Having a
chapter on the very basics of plugin building would be awesome (like e.g.
explaining what all the push/popRemappableOop stuff is all about).

Thanks again!
Tom

On Sat, Jun 24, 2017 at 2:03 AM tim Rowledge <tim at rowledge.org> wrote:

>
> Extending the help system is an excellent idea. A very good first job
> might be to properly condense all the items currently in the Help docking
> bar menu into the help browser and then get rid of those menu items.
>
> Having everything within the help browser would have the desirable side
> effect of making it unnecessary to fix the odd behaviour shown if you
> choose Help->The Squeak User Interface (as one example)  - the help browser
> opens on that section, which is nice, but if you should happen to click on
> the ‘Search Results’ list entry then your help goes away and there is no
> way to retrieve it (other than starting from the beginning).
>
> A help browser is an excellent place for longer form explanations of what
> a part of the system does and how it does it, tying together multiple
> classes and code scattered around. Making sure that there are pointers to
> the class-specific comments (or perhaps embedding them?) within those
> larger help articles would be smart. Likewise having pointers from a class
> to any help article  that discusses it would be nice. I very much like the
> way some help articles have executable examples with in them - full marks
> to whoever has provided them. Having the window menus for the main tools
> able to open a help browser aimed at the doc for the tool would be nice.
>
> The most important thing about any help system is that it is actually
> used, so that it becomes a worthwhile habit to look in it for information.
> It isn’t too hard to make a tool that is easy to add information to, nor to
> make it easy to find stuff within. The real trick is getting everyone to
> remember to add well-written articles to it.
>
> tim
> --
> tim Rowledge; tim at rowledge.org; http://www.rowledge.org/tim
> Fractured Idiom:- PORTE-KOCHERE - Sacramental wine
>
>
>
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