Smalltalk: Requiem or Resurgence? {Dr. Dobb's Journal (05/06/06) Chan, Jeremy}

There was this period when UI consistency was the holy grail.  But, the web
blew that to pieces.  Now there are so many different looks that users are
more adaptable.  Having a relatively consistent feel is still very
important.  Switching between applications that respond to the right mouse
button on mouse down, on mouse up, or on left butt with option down can
drive a user nuts.  Having the shadows going different ways does actually
drive those who have a design esthetic nuts.  If you are going to be
different be enough different that it does not clash.

A Mac user is not going to be as happy with a window level menu as with a
menu that integrates with the menu bar.  A Windows user is not going to want
an application to create a global menu bar for just that one application.
There are some macro conventions for a platform that should not be broken
just to be different, and will cost you users if you break them without a
really good reason.  The problem with the Squeak UI is not the colors, but
that the user needs to learn a whole new window management method, that is
not sufficiently better to justify the effort.  The window borders, scroll
bars, and title are also much thinner which makes them harder to hit with
the mouse.

There are counter examples also.  In using Dolphin Smalltalk I really miss
the ability to click on the start of a text block to select the block, or a
line to select the line.  Because it uses native widgets it does not have
that Smalltalk "feel" that I am used to and like for editing code.

Michael



-----Original Message-----
From: [hidden email]
[mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Chris
Muller
Sent: Monday, May 15, 2006 2:46 PM
To: squeak dev
Subject: Re: Smalltalk: Requiem or Resurgence? {Dr. Dobb's Journal
(05/06/06) Chan, Jeremy}

Nicolas wrote:
 
 > If you try to mimic the OS native interface, it's only a defensive
strategy,
> by construction something imperfect and always one version late...
> You're wasting development forces to follow the leaders, and don't invent
> anymore in this domain...

 +1  thank you Nicolas for nailing my sentiments about native widget
emulation.
 
 The goal should be good looking, easy-to-use interfaces.  Innovate, don't
emulate.
 
 I must admit, I've never understood why some are so concerned with native
look and feel anyway.  Why is it such a big deal if the drop-shadow on my
buttons appears lower-left instead of lower-right (this is a made up
example, is there a better one)?  If Microsoft does it in their new version
of Windows, THEN its ok.  It suddenly becomes (gong please) "the new
standard" that we all must "conform" to.  Please..  The only way to break
this cycle of following is to break it.
 
 Frankly, I also wonder about those who feel "blocked" by Squeaks "weird"
look and feel.  It's basically the same as anything else as far as I can
tell.  You have lists, buttons, scroll-bars, text editors, etc.  They're
styled a bit differently than native windows but operate pretty much the
same.  These widget differences are like the differences between driving a
Ford vs a Chevy, not much, and most anyone is able to figure it out.
 
 The fact is, going forward, new-and-refined UI's *will* be designed, both
in and out of Squeak.  The only thing any user can do is adjust, get used to
it, and develop an exploratory nature when working with computers.  Either
that or stay with MS Word and MS Excel forever..   :)
 
  - Chris
 

Hello Chris,

CM>  +1  thank you Nicolas for nailing my sentiments about native widget emulation.

same feelings here and I fully agree with the rest of your posting.
 
CM>  I must admit, I've never understood why some are so
CM> concerned with native look and feel anyway.
I can't understand either but having done hundreds of software
trainings I know there is a significant number of software _users_ who
will not recognize a button if it's not grey and ... like with M$.

I think it's the difference between people learning the rules and
people memorising examples.
 

Cheers

Herbert                            mailto:[hidden email]

My issue is one of operation and windows.  If the mouse moving means we
loose focus and users can not use a form heads down, or if the UI doesn't
support multiple windows, much is lost.  I think that supporting frameworks
for widgets like wxWidgets is a good idea.  Integration of wxSqueak anyone?

A second issue is one of usability and business support.  We have had a
number of people including myself trying to read and write files without
understanding CrLfFileStream.  This is really an issue for me.  I suggested
that we need to have a way to do aStringOrCollection writeToFile: aFile or
aStringOrCollection readFromFile: aFile that should just work without having
to know the ins and outs of the streams or any particular platform.  The
response I got from the community was this is a language not an application
and since we can support what needs to be done developers need to understand
the tools.  If this is the case then we need a business squeak that supports
applications not just tools, we need more support for processes and business
protocols.  EDI, ASN.1, Cryptography, Workflow, Reporting, Bluetooth,
personally I would like to see support for X12, HL7, NCPDP...  We should
have preBuilt applications that can be used or modified that can solve real
world business problems.  We should be encouraging web hosts to offer
Seaside and provide applications that run on it.  Why is .net and python and
perl and php so successful?  Well when I can go and install an application
to use without knowing anything about the language it encourages me to want
to know more and to learn to develop or modify packages.  Besides
downloading and installing a finished application is also a good way to
learn what a finished application looks like.

We should have openSource applications for Squeak and we should consider
adding code that makes Squeak easier to use for business applications.

Just some thoughts!  (I was trying to stay out of this thread)

Happy Coding!!

Ron Teitelbaum

Wilhelm K. Schwab, Ph.D.
University of Florida
Department of Anesthesiology
PO Box 100254
Gainesville, FL 32610-0254

Email: [hidden email]
Tel: (352) 846-1285
FAX: (352) 392-7029

>>> Bill Schwab 05/13/06 11:40 PM >>>
=====================================
One issue I continue to face in trying to get Squeak to be a viable
solution at my workplace is that Squeak does not integrate with the
common idioms of the day very well.

For instance, Squeak doesn't support SSL and HTTPS.
=====================================

Interesting you mention this.  I was recently searching for
Squeak/OpenSSL integration, and found some mention of a plugin (not
obvious how to get it though), that something similar is present in
Croquet.

Socket and server socket classes for OpenSSL, and associated streams
would be most welcome.  IMHO, it would be best to dynamically link to
the OpenSSL binaries where possible.  Whether that is done via FFI or
LoadLibrary() etc. in the various VMs is unclear to me.

Bill

SSL is done quite easily with Squeak using stunnel.  I was doubtful
myself till I tried it, but it works great.  With solutions like stunnel
and apache so easily plugged in, I can see why no one ever bothered to
re-implement them in squeak, it's just not worth the effort.

Kendall Shaw wrote: I was pretty busy for the last two weeks and had no time to read the
mailing list, but after I've read this thread, I feel, I must summarize
my feelings about this topic. First of all, the above words are very
true. Squeak in this form is great for us Squeak users, but how about
others, who know nothing about it? Just imagine, you would develop a
great application in Squeak and then give it to a BFU user that is used
to work with Windows application. What would his/her feelings be? The
fact is, a programming language or environment can be brilliant by
itself, but if it is not accepted by the developers and end users (or if
they have an *aversion* to use it) it will just not be used in
mainstream. I first met Squeak (and Smalltalk in general) at my
university studies. I was astonished by its possibilities and maybe
lucky too, because I had no previous experience with Java. So I started
to use it, developed my diploma thesis in Squeak and continue to use it
for my PhD. thesis too. But when my friends ask me, what programming
language I'm using, usually their reaction is something like: "Oh,
Squeak, well, isn't that a language for outsiders? Is it used by any
serious big companies? Can you deploy applications in Squeak similar to
those developed in Java? What about the performance?". Sure, part of
this problem lies in the fact, that Squeak and Smalltalk in common is
not widely spread at universities. If it is used, then for research
projects that are not supposed to act as big mainstream applications.
Because of this, there is no chance to train a new generation of
programmers, who would actively use Smalltalk from the beginning and
*CONTINUE* to use it in their daily work. There is very little chance,
that someone, who started to use Java as his/her main programming
language, will switch to Squeak. I agree, that a lack of standard API is
also a problem, although it is true, that it limits the divergence of a
language. Also, imagine that a company would actually decide to migrate
to Squeak for example. They used a professional IDE before and run
Squeak. What do they see? A fox's head with moving eyes and a somehow
strange and childish UI. How are they supposed to create a serious
application in that? Note, these word just try to demonstrate how a
Squeak newbie would just react at the first encounter with Morphic.
Personally, I think Morphic is great because of it's flexibility, but if
you are developing an application with GUI, it is the last So let
choice, mainly because it has only one global event handler for every
window/object.'s talk straight, if we want to have Squeak widely spread
and used also in mainstream, we must *at least*:

* create a new GUI or a way to use standard widgets from Squeak
* get an application written in Squeak behave like it was a standard
Windows application
* create fancy applications in this way to get people take Squeak seriously
* inspire as many beginning programmers as possible to choose Squeak as
their programming language number one, one they start to use it, they
will never want to use anything else anyway :-) we'll nedd the first 3
points done for that
* get serious big corporations to sponsor Squeak and also get more publicity

These are my humble opinions. Please do not feel offended, personally I
love Squeak and would never use anything else, but in practice I'm bound
to use C++ :-(  (c'est la vie)

Cheers,

Elod