Can I use Projects in Pharo?

Hi...

my first post here, so hello everyone!

I started to play with Pharo for a few days now and I am really impressed. The only thing I really miss from Squeak is the possibility to create projects  (Open... - morphic project - in Squeak)? Is this somehow possible in Pharo?

Ciao

...Jochen


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On Jun 1, 2010, at 10:42 PM, Jochen Riekhof wrote:

> Hi...
>
> my first post here, so hello everyone!

Welcome!

> I started to play with Pharo for a few days now and I am really impressed. The only thing I really miss from Squeak is the possibility to create projects  (Open... - morphic project - in Squeak)? Is this somehow possible in Pharo?

no :)
you cannot anymore. We have not finished to curve it out and you trust us that if we remove it this is for good reasons.

Stef
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Hi Stef...

Thank you for the welcome and quick answer!

> you cannot anymore. We have not finished to curve it out and you trust us that if we remove it this is for good reasons.

Sure I understand that cleanup is important to get a stable and maintainable platform. When I understand correctly this is one of the main goals of Pharo :-).

However, regardless of implementation, the functionality delivered by projects is great. Are you planning something new in place of the old projects?

(For example my current main tool for work is Intellij IDEA (Java) and one of it's great features is the possibility to define multiple tasks per project, each with an own set of open files, breakpoints etc. Also you can associate such a task with a version control change-set  So you can switch contexts with a click and immediately continue working on a task where you left it).

Ciao

...Jochen

Am 01.06.2010 um 23:11 schrieb Stéphane Ducasse:


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+1 on missing projects.

What is our plan to replace this functionality?  Is the objection to the idea of projects in general, or just the Squeak implementation?

I found it absolutely priceless to have a world for each task at hand - each set up for a particular logical task, but having access to all the classes in the system.

Sean

On Jun 1, 2010, at 11:22 PM, Jochen Riekhof wrote:

> Hi Stef...
>
> Thank you for the welcome and quick answer!
>
>> you cannot anymore. We have not finished to curve it out and you trust us that if we remove it this is for good reasons.
>
> Sure I understand that cleanup is important to get a stable and maintainable platform. When I understand correctly this is one of the main goals of Pharo :-).

let us say it like that but the goals of pharo is really to not just have one smalltalk but reconsider a lot of decisions.
So like in house renovation, right we are just removing the old carpets :)
The key point at the end is what is the smalltalk inspired system that we want to use in the next 20 years.

> However, regardless of implementation, the functionality delivered by projects is great. Are you planning something new in place of the old projects?

like what  because projects had so many facets: saving only one of the changeset and making sure that you lost your code?

> (For example my current main tool for work is Intellij IDEA (Java) and one of it's great features is the possibility to define multiple tasks per project, each with an own set of open files, breakpoints etc. Also you can associate such a task with a version control change-set  So you can switch contexts with a click and immediately continue working on a task where you left it).

This is a different story :) We would be really interested in a well done IDEA like system. Now we do not have the ressources to do it but if
somebody start small and we will be happy to integrate and support it.

Stef
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> +1 on missing projects.

to do what?

> What is our plan to replace this functionality?
which one exactly?

>  Is the objection to the
> idea of projects in general, or just the Squeak implementation?

I let you guess :)

> I found it absolutely priceless to have a world for each task at hand - each
> set up for a particular logical task, but having access to all the classes
> in the system.

well I spent so many hours trying to work with projects for doing demos and
my botinc book that I can tell you that they can really kill you.

Do you know for example that when you save a project, only the last changeset is saved
with it. Then what happen if in another project you change the exact same method?
since changes do not record changes themselves but just the fact that they was a change
you can be in funny situation.

Stef
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I have my different "projects" in different images. That works perfectly.

Lukas

On 2 June 2010 08:46, Stéphane Ducasse <[hidden email]> wrote:


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Lukas Renggli
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I was just going to say the same. I have tons of images. Just duplicate an image and you have a new project. No need for a brittle mechanism inside the image.

Cheers,
Adrian


On Jun 2, 2010, at 08:50 , Lukas Renggli wrote:


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Stéphane Ducasse wrote

to do what?
which one exactly?

The only thing I use projects for is to separate the different tasks I am working on at the same time (like spaces on the Mac), so I can have one world where I'm working on a client project, and a whole other world if I find a bug in the system that I want to fix - I want to move to another world, fix the bug, and move right back to my client world, with the windows exactly the way I left them.

For my use case, saving projects doesn't come into play.  Why not remove the save functionality, since that seems to be the objection everyone raises, and keep them as a workspace organization tool - in image only?

Lukas Renggli wrote

I have my different "projects" in different images. That works perfectly.

For my workflow, this is too heavyweight.  In my mind, that's like buying multiple separate computers to run different apps.  Even though I am working on multiple tasks at once, they are not *that* different.  For example, in my "fix a bug" task above, I want the fix to be in my working image (which is automatic in the projects solution), without having to load into all the other images I'm working on.

One of the killer features of Squeak/Pharo to me is that the whole system is available to itself.  If I start breaking the image into smaller task-based images, it feels like going back to applications and files - yuck! ;-)

Sean

I guess a project in an image-based system is not always easily defined.  What is a project exactly?  Is it a morphic application, a seaside/AIDAWeb/Iliad based web app, a new framework, a shared component?  Which part of the image needs to be "in the project"?

Maybe I am wrong here but with the new package management system everyone can freely load and unload "projects" they want to work with/on from repositories like PharoSource uuuh SqueakSource :)

Projects as described might be similar to Dolphin's IdeaSpace.  For whatever reason, I never liked them very much, so I am not the best person to comment.  What I found most effective was to have filters on browsers so they would show me only subsets of the image and were easily launched from a tool that was always available in my image.  That said, I can see why one might would want to have different tools open for different tasks, and be able to easily move between them.

I am not sure about the objections to Squeak projects, other than IIRC, they use SmartReferenceStream, which I find to be horrible in various respects.  The output is verbose, layout conversions do not anticipate the needs of an end user nor of the developer trying to protect the end user from a walkback, and the conversion methods go in the wrong place (attached to the serializer instead of the class that changed).  In a word, YUK!!!

Bill




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From: [hidden email] [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Sean P. DeNigris [[hidden email]]
Sent: Wednesday, June 02, 2010 9:58 AM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [Pharo-project] Can I use Projects in Pharo?

Stéphane Ducasse wrote:
>
> to do what?
> which one exactly?
>

The only thing I use projects for is to separate the different tasks I am
working on at the same time (like spaces on the Mac), so I can have one
world where I'm working on a client project, and a whole other world if I
find a bug in the system that I want to fix - I want to move to another
world, fix the bug, and move right back to my client world, with the windows
exactly the way I left them.

For my use case, saving projects doesn't come into play.  Why not remove the
save functionality, since that seems to be the objection everyone raises,
and keep them as a workspace organization tool - in image only?


Lukas Renggli wrote:
>
> I have my different "projects" in different images. That works perfectly.
>

For my workflow, this is too heavyweight.  In my mind, that's like buying
multiple separate computers to run different apps.  Even though I am working
on multiple tasks at once, they are not *that* different.  For example, in
my "fix a bug" task above, I want the fix to be in my working image (which
is automatic in the projects solution), without having to load into all the
other images I'm working on.

One of the killer features of Squeak/Pharo to me is that the whole system is
available to itself.  If I start breaking the image into smaller task-based
images, it feels like going back to applications and files - yuck! ;-)

Sean
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I think you are missing the OP's point.  The goal (unless I am missing something) is to have a way to open say four browsers on specific classes and methods and maybe a workspace or two to work on one particular project/task, and to do the same for other tasks.  All of this stuff would remain readily accessible with a high-level "table of contents" that allows on to enter a task, change something, and then switch to another task.

My argument against this would be that it seems potentially memory hungry and perhaps sluggish due to all of the potentially invisible tools' updating themselves on various events, but if we ignore it in our images, we won't suffer much.

I agree that doing this with separate images is a step backward.

Bill



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From: [hidden email] [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Geert Claes [[hidden email]]
Sent: Wednesday, June 02, 2010 10:38 AM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [Pharo-project] Can I use Projects in Pharo?

I guess a project in an image-based system is not always easily defined.
What is a project exactly?  Is it a morphic application, a
seaside/AIDAWeb/Iliad based web app, a new framework, a shared component?
Which part of the image needs to be "in the project"?

Maybe I am wrong here but with the new package management system everyone
can freely load and unload "projects" they want to work with/on from
repositories like PharoSource uuuh SqueakSource :)
--
View this message in context: http://forum.world.st/Can-I-use-Projects-in-Pharo-tp2239170p2240239.html
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> The only thing I use projects for is to separate the different tasks I am
> working on at the same time (like spaces on the Mac), so I can have one
> world where I'm working on a client project, and a whole other world if I...

Yep, thank you Sean - this more or less nails it. Squeak projects are what comes closest to what i need to be able to quickly change context. It is perfectly ok to have them just in the image without any possibility for load/save.

As for the IDEA comparison I raised, there is a big difference in my work style when switching tasks in IDEA/Java and Smalltalk. My impression is that for one this is because in Smalltalk you "live" inside your objects (image) while in Java you mostly have the edit-compile cycle. Also, traditional Smalltalk Browsers show you just one small piece of code (method) at a time while in file oriented environments you think in Files and scroll to get to a method. So what I do in Smalltalk  is placing a couple of Browsers, workspaces and often also instances of the developed objects (!). Switching context means to destroy all this setup, and manually build another one. Switching bask, I have to redo all this for my former setup. (I could imagine that all this is a bit less of an issue in web development but I have too little Smalltalk experience here).

> Projects as described might be similar to Dolphin's IdeaSpace.  For whatever reason, I never liked them very much, so I am not the best person to comment.

I share with Bill that I never use IdeaSpaces in Dolphin. However, IdeaSpaces are very different from Squeak projects as they just allow you to group browsers and workspaces with tabs which does (IMHO) not match Smalltalk work style for above reasons and I would not need a similar tool in Pharo.

To summarize, I would be perfectly happy with a streamlined projects implementation that just gives you different view to dive into without any need to save them outside the present image.


Ciao

...Jochen

Am 02.06.2010 um 15:58 schrieb Sean P. DeNigris:


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>
>> Projects as described might be similar to Dolphin's IdeaSpace.  For whatever reason, I never liked them very much, so I am not the best person to comment.
>
> I share with Bill that I never use IdeaSpaces in Dolphin. However, IdeaSpaces are very different from Squeak projects as they just allow you to group browsers and workspaces with tabs which does (IMHO) not match Smalltalk work style for above reasons and I would not need a similar tool in Pharo.
>
> To summarize, I would be perfectly happy with a streamlined projects implementation that just gives you different view to dive into without any need to save them outside the present image.

build a small prototype if you can and you can really influence us :)
But we will not load project code in pharo that 100% sure :)


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On 6/2/2010 3:30 AM, Adrian Lienhard wrote:
> I was just going to say the same. I have tons of images. Just duplicate an image and you have a new project. No need for a brittle mechanism inside the image.
>
> Cheers,
> Adrian

Same here, images are projects.  I never liked the squeak project mechanism.

Ramon Leon
http://onsmalltalk.com

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2010/6/2 Schwab,Wilhelm K <[hidden email]>
I think you are missing the OP's point.  The goal (unless I am missing something) is to have a way to open say four browsers on specific classes and methods and maybe a workspace or two to work on one particular project/task, and to do the same for other tasks.

In past I used projects like you. I have many tasks and used separate project for each. I have many morphs opened in different projects (for data diagrams, image processing, animation and others, not only browsers and workspaces). It's really very suitable for development, learning and usage ready appications.
I try used separate images for each task. But with this approach I must update any system package in all images I used.

I think multiple worlds system will be very attractive for users. Maybe its implementation not difficult. And it will be more powerfull than Dolphin IdeaSpaces and java IDE's analogous.
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+1

Images are projects, I'm agree with that. But having multiple worlds is like having a multiple desktop layout. Why are them in Mac and Linux? Because it's useful.

Cheers,

Mariano.




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hehe, I never use Spaces in OS X. They don't work for me (often, windows open in the wrong space and hence I quickly mess up and it just gets annoying because I don't find what I am looking for).

Instead, I use multiple machines!

just kidding ;)

cu on Saturday at the sprint,
Adrian


On Jun 2, 2010, at 21:45 , Mariano Abel Coca wrote:


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I have never been able to distinguish my workplace from home. I therefore have just one place, where I both live and work. Instead, I frequently change countries.

Just (half) kidding ;-)

Cheers,
Alexandre


On 2 Jun 2010, at 15:54, Adrian Lienhard wrote:


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Jochen Riekhof wrote

> The only thing I use projects for is to separate the different tasks I am
> working on at the same time (like spaces on the Mac), so I can have one
> world where I'm working on a client project, and a whole other world if I...

Yep, thank you Sean - this more or less nails it. Squeak projects are what comes closest to what i need to be able to quickly change context. It is perfectly ok to have them just in the image without any possibility for load/save.

...

To summarize, I would be perfectly happy with a streamlined projects implementation that just gives you different view to dive into without any need to save them outside the present image.

Seems like most people agree here that the image is your project.  Something that "just gives you a different view" within your live image is not really what I would call a project and calling it that only adds to the confusion.

It does sound like there is a group (not everyone has the same work habbits) that really likes the concept of virtual desktops within an image; desks, spaces, workspaces ....

Idea's are great and I like Stef's suggestion for someone to make a little prototype to see if/how they can fit in Pharo.