Exceptions' descriptions contain stupid prefix in VAST

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Re: Exceptions' descriptions contain stupid prefix in VAST

Seth Berman
One area where Instantiations did see success doing this was with the 64-bit virtual machine development.
Technically, what people know as the 64-bit development project was the second try.  The first try failed.
This virtual machine has had near zero reported defects.  That's essentially unheard of.
And now that same team has put together a fantastic JIT compiler in about 8 months (with an incredible customer partership we'll be messaging more about in the next few weeks).
While products like VA Smalltalk, with our desired stability and support levels, require we be extremely conservative with regards to change on behalf of our customers...it absolutely is a platform that can continue to be pushed forward in all sorts of fantastic and interesting ways.

- Seth


On Sunday, May 12, 2019 at 8:42:59 AM UTC-4, Seth Berman wrote:
Great insight John,

The great part about the 'isNil ifTrue: []' -> 'ifNil:[]' is the completely ridiculous set of consequences to such a benign and expected action.
Kind of like making a trip to the local supermarket whose entrance is wired with explosives. No one can really call you guilty for opening the door.
The point of the story is now when someone asks us to go to the supermarket for them, we kinda expect its wired with explosives and we just like to make very sure what we're being asked to get is really really compelling:)

- Seth

On Sunday, May 12, 2019 at 6:38:54 AM UTC-4, John O'Keefe wrote:
As the guilty party in the 'isNil ifTrue: []' -> 'ifNil: []' debacle, I can attest to the laws of unintended, and unexpected, consequences.

An additional consideration, particularly in regard to exception handling, is that there is a considerable amount of product code that depends on the existing behavior. This means that the change can roll through a lot of other code changes with their own risks.

And then there is the previously mentioned undiscovered consequences in infrequently visited, but important, addons like the WidgetKit products (we have forgotten more than once over the years to audit one or more of these products for the effect of changes).

And lastly, but certainly not finally, there are the subtle differences between platform behaviors. While Windows and Linux get a really good workout simply because we use them every day in development, the same cannot be said for Solaris and AIX.

Like Seth, I learned over the years to keep my hands in my pockets rather than on the keyboard when considering changes.

John

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Re: Exceptions' descriptions contain stupid prefix in VAST

johnmci
In reply to this post by John O'Keefe-3
I am struck by a chapter from Apple’s playbook. Generally we would attempt to made something backward compatible. 

What if you made a branch, rewrote the customer’s code, then asked for a code review? Apple does this every time to developers when they switch swift versions. 


....
John M. McIntosh. Corporate Smalltalk Consulting Ltd https://www.linkedin.com/in/smalltalk


Sent from ProtonMail Mobile


On Sun, May 12, 2019 at 03:38, 'John O'Keefe' via VA Smalltalk <[hidden email]> wrote:
As the guilty party in the 'isNil ifTrue: []' -> 'ifNil: []' debacle, I can attest to the laws of unintended, and unexpected, consequences.

An additional consideration, particularly in regard to exception handling, is that there is a considerable amount of product code that depends on the existing behavior. This means that the change can roll through a lot of other code changes with their own risks.

And then there is the previously mentioned undiscovered consequences in infrequently visited, but important, addons like the WidgetKit products (we have forgotten more than once over the years to audit one or more of these products for the effect of changes).

And lastly, but certainly not finally, there are the subtle differences between platform behaviors. While Windows and Linux get a really good workout simply because we use them every day in development, the same cannot be said for Solaris and AIX.

Like Seth, I learned over the years to keep my hands in my pockets rather than on the keyboard when considering changes.

John

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Re: Exceptions' descriptions contain stupid prefix in VAST

Seth Berman
In reply to this post by jtuchel
Hello Joachim,

Just to follow up with what I said I would do, I have put in Case 64804 into our system into the backlog.
I have made reference to our discussion here and a linked it to Case 50663 from 2013 which also addressed Signal>>description issues from https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/va-smalltalk/Fs6trFTfTs0/NQcD72RgbygJ.
This will be reviewed at one of our major planning meetings after the 9.2 release.

- Seth

On Friday, May 10, 2019 at 7:52:37 AM UTC-4, Joachim Tuchel wrote:
Hi Seth,

thank you very much for letting us understand how you feel and think about changes and what is needed to be sure a change is not only worth it but also the right thing to do.

As I said before, VAST is what it is because this way of working with change leads to great stability, with all its consequences, some of which we might not like. The whole point of my post here was to help me understand if asking you for starting the thought process is worth it. I know my way around it with a simple comment that can be re-appliad with every new version (I've been doing so for a while now) and if you come to the conclusion there is too much of a risk or too little gain in it, that is okay with me.

Maybe someone else wants to comment on why they might face problems if the prefix would be gone. Using your example, an asbsent log entry has the potential to be fatal, of course. That is why I explicitly asked if anybody here is relying on this text.


Have a nice weekend.

Joachim

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Re: Exceptions' descriptions contain stupid prefix in VAST

jtuchel
In reply to this post by Richard Sargent
Richard,

messageText also was John's suggestion back then and I remember I had used it, until I found that either Glorp or some other Library I am using returns less than perfect results for that. I don't have all details at hand right now, but remember giving up on messageText. I really should take more notes....


Joachim

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