Damage to More Objects chapter (renamed)

I am in the middle of repairing extensive damage in the More Objects
chapter (which I just now renamed from More Etoys Objects) of the
Etoys Reference Manual. I find fragments of text from unidentified
object descriptions, without section headings, and out of alphabetical
order, all of which I have to track down and correct.

Rita, is this your work? Has somebody else stepped in without talking
to either of us? If so, please stop and let me do it instead. The
information on Squeak implementations belongs either with the original
object definitions, or in a separate chapter, which I am now leaning
towards. We cannot divide it up so that the object is defined in the
Objects chapter, and the information on its Squeak implementation is
in the More Objects chapter.

I will have more to say when I finish surveying and correcting the damage.

--
Edward Mokurai (默雷/निशब्दगर्ज/نشبدگرج) Cherlin
Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation.
The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination.
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Replacing_Textbooks
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It is not the best idea to have this discussion on etoys-dev instead of squeakland, because just some of the contributors to the manual are subscribed to the dev list.
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I started to write this a long time ago, and now I am moved to send it.

On Fri, October 19, 2012 4:40 am, Rita Freudenberg wrote:
> It is not the best idea to have this discussion on etoys-dev instead of
> squeakland, because just some of the contributors to the manual are
> subscribed to the dev list.

I am replying to both.

That turns out not to be the case, Rita. More Objects was a jumbled
mess, and I had to spend considerable time on the first pass at fixing
it, with more work still remaining to be done. Compare your work on
the 16th with mine on the 18th in both the Objects and More Objects
chapters.

* It was not in alphabetical order. It is now.

* It had no headings for many objects. It has them now.

* Text from different object descriptions was mixed together out of
order. It is separated now.

* Formatting was lost. I have added it back.

* You moved Holder, which is in the Scripting category, to the wrong
chapter. I moved it back.

* You failed to move a number of objects not in any category. I have moved them.

* Information on Squeak implementations was in the More Objects
chapter with nothing about what objects they go with. I have not had
time to fix that, that is, to move the implementation notes to the
Morph Definitions appendix.

* You have not moved many of the other Squeak implementation notes,
for which I am glad. I will move them.

It will take much more work to make sure that everything that is
supposed to be there actually is there, and to move what is not
supposed to be there. There is text missing, for sure. I marked breaks
in the text where I found them.

>> Rita, is this your work? Has somebody else stepped in without talking
>> to either of us? If so, please stop and let me do it instead.
>
> I cleaned up the "objects" chapter to give it back the structure we
> intended it to have.

That's a Yes, then. It is your work.

You did not "clean up" the Objects chapter, which still contained many
objects that we agreed to move, and much Squeak implementation
information.

Now how about responding to my request? I don't need or want this
astonishingly sloppy kind of help that ends up making more work for me
than if I had done it all myself from the beginning.

>> The
>> information on Squeak implementations belongs either with the original
>> object definitions, or in a separate chapter, which I am now leaning
>> towards.
>
> Definitely. The information about Squeak implementation will confuse the
> many users of Etoys who are not going deeper into the system. So please
> remove this information from "objects" chapter, or I'll remove it again.

What is this hostility about? I have not suggested moving it back in,
and in fact I have offered to move it out myself.

>> We cannot divide it up so that the object is defined in the
>> Objects chapter, and the information on its Squeak implementation is
>> in the More Objects chapter.
>
> What about adding a list of all objects to the "Appendix Morph
> Definitions" and put the implementation details there?

Isn't that what I said? It is certainly what I began doing days ago.
But we cannot do it in the slipshod way that you have begun. I wanted
to design the new Appendix, and then move the implementation pieces in
an organized manner. I see now that I must do it without preparation
in order to prevent further damage.

> Then we have the
> object and its implementation in one place.

No, we don't. We have the Etoys facilities, such as menus, buttons,
and scripting tiles, in one place, and the Squeak implementation
information in a completely different place.

> And everyone can look up more about the object

Less, actually.

> in either the "objects" or the "more objects" chapter.

Your choice, not mine. I disagree, but I will not fight about it.

> Also, I would like to discuss the renaming of the chapters.
>
> At the moment, we have "basic objects" and "more objects". I find it a bit
> confusing, since we also have the "basic" category in the object catalogue

I find the Basic category to be completely misnamed and misdesigned.
There is nothing basic about Particles in particular. It makes no
sense to call Joystick and Slider basic, but not Button. But then I
find all of the categories to be misdesigned, and I find the inclusion
of objects with no category to be a severe misfeature, and the
implementation of the eToyFriendly Preference worse than any of those.
I have created a separate appendix so that I can start to document the
effects of its 59 senders.

> and this is not what the chapter is about.

We could be excruciatingly precise and name the first chapter
something like "Objects in Categories in the Object Catalog". That is
the only correct statement of the choice we have made. Unless you want
to say "Objects We Want You to Know About", and "Objects We Want to
Pretend You Will Never Encounter No Matter How Advanced You Get Which
is Why We Tried So Feebly to Hide Them From You". This is precisely my
view of the level of delusion put forward in this discussion about
pretending that only beginners will ever read this manual, which is
therefore not a Reference Manual at all in that view.

I intend to write that Introduction to Etoys after the Reference
Manual is complete. By myself, if I have to. I am not impressed at the
level of cooperation I have seen here. I ask for help, and get
ignored. I do the work as best I know how, and get complaints, even
insults, and find my work shredded on the floor.

What is the matter with you people? What is the matter with the whole
entire Smalltalk/Squeak/Etoys enterprise? Are we all suffering Sour
Grapes because the schools will not take us seriously?

> We divide the objects between
> the chapters based on where they are implemented. So we have the Etoys
> Objects and the morphs in Squeak.

This is not the case. All Etoys objects are instances of
UnscriptedPlayers or subclasses of Players, costumed in instances of
Morphs of one kind or another, all implemented in Squeak. When you
drag an object from the Object Catalog or a flap, the system creates a
new instance of UnscriptedPlayer (as you can see via the Players tool)
and a new Morphic costume. The moment you start a script for that
object, the system creates a new subclass of Player for it.

I drag an Ellipse from the Supplies Flap, and open its viewer. It
appears in Players. I open an inspector on it from the menu provided,
and I see

self     an UnscriptedPlayer (1339) named Ellipse
costume     an EllipseMorph<Ellipse>(1499)

I can then look these items up in the System Browser and the Hierarchy Browser.

UnscriptedPlayer

Player subclass: #UnscriptedPlayer
        instanceVariableNames: ''
        classVariableNames: ''
        poolDictionaries: ''
        category: 'Etoys-Scripting'

My instances are Player objects that have not been scripted, and which
hence do not require a unique scripts dictionary, etc.  As soon as the
needed [sic], I am transformed automatically into a unique subclass of
Player.

What that means is that when I drag an empty script from the viewer,
or drag out a tile and drop it so that a Script Editor is created to
hold it, the Player subclass is created with the new script in its
unique scripts dictionary, and the Morph is made its costume. We start
with a generic viewer for the Morph type, and then seamlessly transfer
to the viewer into the unique scripts dictionary for the Player
subclass.

In the manual, we are making a distinction not about implementation,
but about how one accesses these objects within Etoys, whether through
the Object Catalog categories, through the Object Catalog alphabetical
listing that includes objects not in categories, through various
flaps, as components of other objects, or via an escape to Squeak
(objectName new openInWorld).

As a professional Senior Technical Writer, my plan when writing
Reference Manuals is always to document _everything_, except for
material that should go in a different Reference Manual. A Squeak
Reference Manual would be a good idea, though a large undertaking. I
have the original Smaltalk-80 manuals in front of me, including The
Interactive Programming Environment and The Language and Its
Implementation.

> My suggestion would be to name the chapter "Etoys Objects" and "Squeak
> Objects". But here I would like to hear the opinion of the developers.
> Does that make sense to you?

No, for the reasons given above.

> Greetings,
> Rita
>
>> I will have more to say when I finish surveying and correcting the
>> damage.

I have not yet had a chance to finish that work. I keep finding more damage.


--
Edward Mokurai (默雷/निशब्दगर्ज/نشبدگرج) Cherlin
Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation.
The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination.
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Replacing_Textbooks
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[hidden email]
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