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Towards a better IDE in Squeak

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Roel Wuyts

Re: Towards a better IDE in Squeak

"An IDE which makes it easy to focus on your work while hiding the
complexity of the things you are not interested in."

Most IDEs seem to think that people only work on a single class (or
hierarchy) at a time. But this is not the case, of course. Sometimes
it is true, but more often than not you are working on a couple of
classes that collaborate. In that you would ideally like to see only
these classes, and then only the parts of these classes that have to
do with the behaviour you are working on. What makes this hard is
that this is something which changes rapidly over time. One minute
you are working on extending a double dispatch scheme, the minute
later you are changing the implementation of a related class to
implement a singleton pattern, etc.

A number of cool browsers that I know of that try to support these
ideas (sorry for all of those that I am forgetting, it is just as an
illustration):
- whisker : since you can easily work on those methods that interest
you and edit these and only these. So you have less overhead in
dealing with the methods you are not interested in at the moment.
Disadvantage is that setting up a good working context is sometimes
expensive
- the Traits browser: collapses information but allows you to expand
it to have a more detailed view.
- The classification browser/StarBrowser/Intensive environments: the
goal is to make it easy to set up and really use working contexts
(e.g. all classes participating in a visitor design pattern) to break
the tyranny of predefined relations used in most browsers (e.g. you
can view classes according to their package or by inheritance or
sorted by name, and that is it).

Note that from my experiments analyzing the behaviour of students
wiorking with VisualWorks (through an extended version of my
SmallBrother tool that would track what window was being used and
being spawned from what other window in order to perform a certain
action), there seem to be two kinds of users: one that like to have
multiple windows open and those that like an Eclipse-like approach
with only one window full-screen and buffers/tabs/views. Might be
obvious, but it really seems to be the case.

On 19 Feb 2007, at 19 February/15:16, Damien Pollet wrote:

> 2007/2/18, David Röthlisberger <[hidden email]>:
>> more efficiently in your daily work? Where is the current IDE in your
>> way, where is it not good enough, what could be better? What do you
>> miss, what do you need to get a better IDE?
>
> Hi David,
>
> I have a problem with the multitude of different browsers. I don't
> know what the best solution is...
> a good window navigation tool like exposé?
> transient browsers that you don't need to explicitly close?
> one central window with most tools at hand and contextual inspectors?
>
> --
> Damien Pollet
> type less, do more [ | ] http://typo.cdlm.fasmz.org
>

Darius Clarke

Re: Towards a better IDE in Squeak

In reply to this post by stephane ducasse

Some more points:

1. Squeak's "Tile" view/representation of source code shows how
programing source code artifacts can be scoped and represented as
objects in and of themselves.

2. The most important point in the Raskin book for your attention is
the fact that the rarest and most precious resource for all software
developers and their organizations, above all other constraints bar
none, and which all code and tools must be designed to conserve is ...
human memory. Due to efficiencies of scale in all other aspects of
software development, to load and copy what's in human memory takes
more time and expense than /anything/ else. Architectures must be
designed around the conservation of human memory at their basis. Most
programmers just cannot develop photographic memories for all that is
asked of them by almost all architectures and platforms. Time delays
in context switching burns up much of a programmers' time. API calls
are in the 100,000's now and continually changing.

3. As Alan Kay alluded to in his latest interview, a lot of assumed
laws of nature are really traditions we've not question. A lot of
programming artifacts are really efforts to fold information, often
using labels, to fit within the limits of today's monitors and
yesterday's paper. But, as a thought experiment, imagine if we unfold
that information in a 20' x 20' display so we could find what we want
just by moving our eyes. Head mounted and eye mounted displays could
break many of our assumptions about the complexity of code. Many
variable, labels, and other shorthand shortcuts could be dispensed
with. The mental "chunking" (a psychological term) of data can take on
another form for efficiencies.

More later.

On 2/19/07, stephane ducasse <[hidden email]> wrote:

> - sender/implementor widgets with tree for next sender/implementor
> - multiple method editing (wishker).
> But you know my list and crazy ideas.
>
> Stef
>
> > Most things in this list are either taken form other IDEs or bugfixes,
> > so they might not be interesting from a research point of view:
> >
> > - Scoping of implemtors/senders to packages
> > - make class extensions work like in VW
> > - make the submethod display more than just a text string. Why can't
> > SLint just underline the code that violates a rule?
> > - run SLint on a method once it is compiled (for error reporting
> > see above)
> > - bring Refactoring Engine to the point where the Eclipse Refactoring
> > Engine is (code formatting and stuff)
> > - a protocol browser that is actually usable (choose upper bound)
> > - multiselection (including nil-selection)
> > - make drag and drop work everywhere in the browser
> > - make multiselection work with drag and drop
> > - fix those annoying bugs in the browser where a method ends up in the
> > wrong category (if you are lucky) when you are editing the same class
> > in two browsers
> > - fix the debugger (those annoying cases where you code ten minutes in
> > the debugger accept it but the code lost because you where in a block
> > or whatever)
> > - "move to class/instance side" refactoring (yes I know this is
> > technically not a refactoring, I don't care)
> > - roel typer integration to display the "roel types" of variables
> > - when changing the shape of a class only recompile the methods that
> > actually access instance variables
> > - method display plugins (eg. a profiler can draw a heatmap but just
> > coloring the statements differently without the need to implement the
> > whole index <-> statement mapping)
> > - a better inspector that supports drag and drop and where you can
> > drop objects in the evaluator pane
> > - back-button
> > - "make trait" refactoring (working together with multiselection)
> > - trait support for refactoring engine
> > - finish the traits browser
> > - what is is the status of services to enable refactoring support in
> > the omnibrowser? It it is not done then do it.
> > - integrate services into the duo-systembrowser
> >
> > Cheers
> > Philippe
> >
>
>
>

David Röthlisberger

Re: Towards a better IDE in Squeak

In reply to this post by Roel Wuyts

Hi Roel,

> "An IDE which makes it easy to focus on your work while hiding the
> complexity of the things you are not interested in."
>
> Most IDEs seem to think that people only work on a single class (or
> hierarchy) at a time. But this is not the case, of course. Sometimes it
> is true, but more often than not you are working on a couple of classes
> that collaborate. In that you would ideally like to see only these
> classes, and then only the parts of these classes that have to do with
> the behaviour you are working on. What makes this hard is that this is
> something which changes rapidly over time. One minute you are working on
> extending a double dispatch scheme, the minute later you are changing
> the implementation of a related class to implement a singleton pattern,
> etc.

Yes, exactly. An idea of mine was to take use of dynamic (feature)
analysis to find out which classes collaborate to each other when a
software is running. Then we could automatically group these classes
together. The closeness of one class to another in this group reflects
the "closeness" in a feature or in the whole software. The closeness
information has to be gained dynamically, and metrics to measure this
closeness could be methods invoked on each other or instances passed to
methods of each other, etc.
This could lead to a short navigation distance a user has to follow when
working on a specific feature in a software which minimizes context
switches, different windows to open, the time to find and navigate code,
... We could even think of doing the same with methods instead of classes.

We could even do more with dynamic anlysis, e.g. visualize objects
passing in a software, etc. For me, bringing the dynamic part of a
software to its typically pure static view we have right now in all or
most browsers seems promising.

One big issue here is of course to permanently gather this dynamic
information and to make it easily accessible to the user while he is
working on a software, so that the user gets the information at the
right time at the right place. This is the challenge.

> Note that from my experiments analyzing the behaviour of students
> wiorking with VisualWorks (through an extended version of my
> SmallBrother tool that would track what window was being used and being
> spawned from what other window in order to perform a certain action),
> there seem to be two kinds of users: one that like to have multiple
> windows open and those that like an Eclipse-like approach with only one
> window full-screen and buffers/tabs/views. Might be obvious, but it
> really seems to be the case.

yes, this is also my impression.

David

Janko Mivšek

Re: Towards a better IDE in Squeak

In reply to this post by Roel Wuyts

Hello Squeakers,

Don't forget the simplest but most powerful addition: tabs! Tabs are a
thing which make Firefox browser famous, IMHO, and I also find RB_Tabs
goodie in VW indispensable.

Next possible addition: back and forward buttons, as in web browser.

Best regards
Janko

Roel Wuyts wrote:
> "An IDE which makes it easy to focus on your work while hiding the
> complexity of the things you are not interested in."
>
> Most IDEs seem to think that people only work on a single class (or
> hierarchy) at a time. But this is not the case, of course.
...

--
Janko Mivšek
AIDA/Web
Smalltalk Web Application Server
http://www.aidaweb.si

Romain Robbes-2

Re: Towards a better IDE in Squeak

In reply to this post by Roel Wuyts

Il giorno Feb 20, 2007, alle ore 9:47 AM, Roel Wuyts ha scritto:

"An IDE which makes it easy to focus on your work while hiding the complexity of the things you are not interested in."

Most IDEs seem to think that people only work on a single class (or hierarchy) at a time. But this is not the case, of course. Sometimes it is true, but more often than not you are working on a couple of classes that collaborate. In that you would ideally like to see only these classes, and then only the parts of these classes that have to do with the behaviour you are working on. What makes this hard is that this is something which changes rapidly over time. One minute you are working on extending a double dispatch scheme, the minute later you are changing the implementation of a related class to implement a singleton pattern, etc.

One thing which is rather hidden in squeak is the "recent submissions" browser, which is a message list containing the last 20 changed methods. It is under world menu/changes/"browse recent submissions ..." . It also keeps up to date and is rather useful to have handy.

Also one idea I had but never got to implement is a browser which would be a mix between the whisker browser and .... iTunes. You would have columns like a normal browser, except you could do multiselection in them, and display several methods in the lower pane. That would be a simple way to select a "working set" of methods. Which you could then save as a 'smart coding playlist' (which brings us to the starbrowser too ..., but the multi-selection if done right would make it easy to select and view several methods.).

Romain

Romain Robbes

http://romain.robb.es

Giovanni Corriga

Re: Towards a better IDE in Squeak

In reply to this post by Janko Mivšek

Il giorno mar, 20/02/2007 alle 12.42 +0100, Janko Mivšek ha scritto:
> Hello Squeakers,
>
> Don't forget the simplest but most powerful addition: tabs! Tabs are a
> thing which make Firefox browser famous, IMHO, and I also find RB_Tabs
> goodie in VW indispensable.

And they're also the only feature of Firefox that I positively _hate_.

So, a plea to whoever is going to invent the IDE of the future: please,
please don't forget us SDI users.

;-)

Giovanni

J J-6

RE: Towards a better IDE in Squeak

In reply to this post by David Röthlisberger

Very interesting. I hope you come up with some nice stuff. :)

But to this statement I would say: (1) Eclipse may be getting better but it
is light years away from what stock Squeak has right now. Eclipse is trying
to do modify/run, but it only works in a very limited way, and I don't see
this getting much better.

And (2), it may be true that Squeak hasn't moved a lot but that doesn't mean
it sucks. Strongtalk sat on a shelf for 10 years without anyone looking at
it, but it remains the most advanced dynamic VM on the planet for now
(Exupery is comming though :).

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J J-6

Re: Towards a better IDE in Squeak

In reply to this post by Philippe Marschall

+1, good list

>From: "Philippe Marschall" <[hidden email]>
>Reply-To: The general-purpose Squeak developers
>list<[hidden email]>
>To: "The general-purpose Squeak developers
>list"<[hidden email]>
>Subject: Re: Towards a better IDE in Squeak
>Date: Sun, 18 Feb 2007 22:46:58 +0100
>
>2007/2/18, David RÃ¶thlisberger <[hidden email]>:
>>Hi all,
>>
>>I'm currently doing a PhD under the supervision of Stephane Ducasse and
>>Oscar Nierstrasz at the university of Bern, Switzerland. My main
>>research interests are in the context of Integrated Development
>>Environments (IDEs). I'm planning to work on the Squeak IDE to see how
>>the IDE of a dynamic object-oriented programming language can be
>>improved and extended.
>>Especially, I want to experiment with different metaphors to browse and
>>navigate source code, with new metaphors to present static (i.e.,
>>classes, methods, source code) as well as dynamic aspects (i.e.,
>>objects, relationships between objects, etc.) of a program in the same
>>IDE, with new ways to modify and edit source code, etc.
>>I believe that we can do more in a better way these days than what we
>>have in the current IDE in Smalltalk or in Java. I believe that the IDE
>>of the future can help the programmer to program more efficiently and
>>with less errors by giving him more insights into the program being
>>developed or by providing him with better tools and guides during his
>>daily work. I believe that what we have now as IDEs are far away from
>>what is possible to have and even far away from what we actually need to
>>be effective and efficient in our daily work. This is a bit sad for
>>Smalltalk, because a long time ago it had the best IDE, but now Eclipse
>>is getting better and better while the IDE of Smalltalk / Squeak stays
>>more or less the same. During my PhD I want to see how we can get
>>something better out of the current Squeak IDE.
>>
>>I write this message out of two reasons: First, I would like to know if
>>you have ideas for things that are missing in the current DIE of Squeak,
>>"things", tools, metaphors, ideas that you would like to see
>>implemented. What are your ideas of how an IDE could help you to work
>>more efficiently in your daily work? Where is the current IDE in your
>>way, where is it not good enough, what could be better? What do you
>>miss, what do you need to get a better IDE?
>>
>>Second, I would also like to do kind of empirical studies in the future
>>to somehow validate the effectiveness and efficiency of new approaches
>>for an IDE, hence I need subjects performing some experiments in these
>>future IDEs and I also need data about how you use your IDE (e.g., how
>>you browse source code, how and where you write source code, with which
>>tools, etc.). Will you be willing to provide me with these data recorded
>>by some non-invasive recordings tools you can simply load in your image
>>and which will then save the recorded data to a file which you would
>>then send to me? Are you also willing to perform some experiments in new
>>IDEs, e.g. trying and playing with them, use them for a project of
>>yours, etc.?
>>For me it is important to know if I can motivate enough people to do a
>>serious empirical study. Without that, I would have a hard time to
>>"prove" that a new approach to e.g. navigate source code is indeed
>>useful and promising, because this is very much dependent on personal
>>feelings and impressions. Only a broader study can hence "prove" the
>>general usefulness (or uselessness) of such a new approach or metaphor.
>>
>>Thanks for your help.
>
>Most things in this list are either taken form other IDEs or bugfixes,
>so they might not be interesting from a research point of view:
>
>- Scoping of implemtors/senders to packages
>- make class extensions work like in VW
>- make the submethod display more than just a text string. Why can't
>SLint just underline the code that violates a rule?
>- run SLint on a method once it is compiled (for error reporting see above)
>- bring Refactoring Engine to the point where the Eclipse Refactoring
>Engine is (code formatting and stuff)
>- a protocol browser that is actually usable (choose upper bound)
>- multiselection (including nil-selection)
>- make drag and drop work everywhere in the browser
>- make multiselection work with drag and drop
>- fix those annoying bugs in the browser where a method ends up in the
>wrong category (if you are lucky) when you are editing the same class
>in two browsers
>- fix the debugger (those annoying cases where you code ten minutes in
>the debugger accept it but the code lost because you where in a block
>or whatever)
>- "move to class/instance side" refactoring (yes I know this is
>technically not a refactoring, I don't care)
>- roel typer integration to display the "roel types" of variables
>- when changing the shape of a class only recompile the methods that
>actually access instance variables
>- method display plugins (eg. a profiler can draw a heatmap but just
>coloring the statements differently without the need to implement the
>whole index <-> statement mapping)
>- a better inspector that supports drag and drop and where you can
>drop objects in the evaluator pane
>- back-button
>- "make trait" refactoring (working together with multiselection)
>- trait support for refactoring engine
>- finish the traits browser
>- what is is the status of services to enable refactoring support in
>the omnibrowser? It it is not done then do it.
>- integrate services into the duo-systembrowser
>
>Cheers
>Philippe

>

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J J-6

Re: Towards a better IDE in Squeak

In reply to this post by Klaus D. Witzel

One thing I was thinking about this was, if we had a darcs style idea of
patches (as I have mentioned a few times :) then maybe we could make a
browser that would let us go back to various changes and specify a
collection of certain ones as a specific patch and annotate it. This might
be a good natural feeling way to document the "why's".

Also with such a system it should be possible to remove previous patches
that don't affect later ones, and things like that. I think there is a lot
of room for advancement in this area.

>From: "Klaus D. Witzel" <[hidden email]>
>Reply-To: The general-purpose Squeak developers
>list<[hidden email]>
>To: [hidden email]
>Subject: Re: Towards a better IDE in Squeak
>Date: Mon, 19 Feb 2007 02:50:45 +0100
>
>Hi David,
>
>what's badly missing in "modern" IDEs is the possibility to write
>integrated documentation in form of stories. Having just a 1:n
>correspondence between system category and classes, message category and
>methods, is [in non-trivial cases] insufficient for describing "why and
>how this works" and "what, in terms of entities, is this *all* about" and
>moreover to ask for "what parts of the system have no integrated
>documentation".
>
>I'd like to be able to drag'n'drop links to "browser accessible objects",
>into an integrated document and write a story "around" the links.
>
>Classes, variables, categories, messages, statements, literals, all should
>be accessible by such link.
>
>With integrated I mean, at minimum, that when browsing for senders,
>implementors, variables and other references, then the result list must
>also turn up the integrated documentation (which containes the links as
>described).
>
>Another aspect of the integrated documentation is that it can (must!)
>outdate when, for example, things are renamed or deleted. Imagine a doIt
>for "browse outdated documentation" ;-)
>
>I hope the above was clear; if not then I'd be happy to respond to
>questions and critique.
>
>For the empirical case study: count me in, I'm used to be electronically
>investigated :)
>
>/Klaus
>
>On Sun, 18 Feb 2007 20:31:55 +0100, David wrote:
>
>>Hi all,
>>
>>I'm currently doing a PhD under the supervision of Stephane Ducasse and
>>Oscar Nierstrasz at the university of Bern, Switzerland. My main research
>>interests are in the context of Integrated Development Environments
>>(IDEs). I'm planning to work on the Squeak IDE to see how the IDE of a
>>dynamic object-oriented programming language can be improved and
>>extended.
>>Especially, I want to experiment with different metaphors
>...
>>For me it is important to know if I can motivate enough people to do a
>>serious empirical study.
>...
>>Thanks for your help.
>>
>>Kind regards,
>>David
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>

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rhawley

RE: Towards a better IDE in Squeak

In reply to this post by J J-6

I suggest the areas of documentation and expanation should be more developed within the environment.

In these days of wikis I would suggest that everything in the system could be linked to an 'open documentation system'. As well as methods and classes, other things like packages, frameworks, patterns, traits, interfaces etc., could be given a structure around which they could be documented. Examples of how to run things, along with suitable monitoring tools to act as (more visual) inspectors could be provided to demonstrate subsystems. At the level of auto documentation, it should be possible to make use of example objects to generate expanations based on the existing linkages. It may be possible to use reasoning systems to deduce information about things like type behaviours. The IDE is not just for expert programmers - it needs to be available to beginners and learners and so should also address their needs - automated and written expanantions could help this.

Roel Wuyts

Re: Towards a better IDE in Squeak

In reply to this post by J J-6

On 20 Feb 2007, at 20 February/16:51, J J wrote:

>> From: David Röthlisberger <[hidden email]>
>> Reply-To: The general-purpose Squeak developers list<squeak-
>> [hidden email]>
>> To: The general-purpose Squeak developers list<squeak-
>> [hidden email]>
>> Subject: Towards a better IDE in Squeak
>> Date: Sun, 18 Feb 2007 20:31:55 +0100
>>
>> This is a bit sad for Smalltalk, because a long time ago it had
>> the best IDE, but now Eclipse is getting better and better while
>> the IDE of Smalltalk / Squeak stays more or less the same.
>
> Very interesting. I hope you come up with some nice stuff. :)
>
> But to this statement I would say: (1) Eclipse may be getting
> better but it is light years away from what stock Squeak has right
> now. Eclipse is trying to do modify/run, but it only works in a
> very limited way, and I don't see this getting much better.

Don't mistake the IDE with the language :-) In itself, and for those
that like to have lots of panes with information, Eclipse is quite
nice. Its completion features and problem resolvers are farther ahead
than what I have seen for any Smalltalk environment. Of course. they
have to be :-) :-) And even with all of these nifty features,
developing Java in Eclipse is still tedious, cumbersome and slow
compared to developing in Squeak. But this does not mean that I am
not longing for a number of Eclipse (or even VisualWorks) features in
Squeak :-)

>
> And (2), it may be true that Squeak hasn't moved a lot but that
> doesn't mean it sucks. Strongtalk sat on a shelf for 10 years
> without anyone looking at it, but it remains the most advanced
> dynamic VM on the planet for now (Exupery is comming though :).

Couldn't agree more :-)

>
> _________________________________________________________________
> Find what you need at prices you’ll love. Compare products and save
> at MSN® Shopping. http://shopping.msn.com/default/shp/?
> ptnrid=37,ptnrdata=24102&tcode=T001MSN20A0701
>
>

J J-6

Re: Towards a better IDE in Squeak

In reply to this post by Giovanni Corriga

Yea, I wouldn't overplay tabs too much. They are mostly only useful because
of (a) how the windows taskbar works and (b) the fact that firefox only runs
one instance of itself anyway so having a bunch of windows open is less
convenient and actually slower then using tabs. Squeak browsers are
(comparatively) quick so I don't miss the tabs at all.

>From: Giovanni Corriga <[hidden email]>
>Reply-To: The general-purpose Squeak developers
>list<[hidden email]>
>To: The general-purpose Squeak developers
>list<[hidden email]>
>Subject: Re: Towards a better IDE in Squeak
>Date: Tue, 20 Feb 2007 15:01:12 +0100
>
>Il giorno mar, 20/02/2007 alle 12.42 +0100, Janko MivÅ¡ek ha scritto:
> > Hello Squeakers,
> >
> > Don't forget the simplest but most powerful addition: tabs! Tabs are a
> > thing which make Firefox browser famous, IMHO, and I also find RB_Tabs
> > goodie in VW indispensable.
>
>And they're also the only feature of Firefox that I positively _hate_.
>
>So, a plea to whoever is going to invent the IDE of the future: please,
>please don't forget us SDI users.
>
> ;-)
>
> Giovanni
>
>

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David Röthlisberger

Re: Towards a better IDE in Squeak

J J schrieb:
> Yea, I wouldn't overplay tabs too much. They are mostly only useful
> because of (a) how the windows taskbar works and (b) the fact that
> firefox only runs one instance of itself anyway so having a bunch of
> windows open is less convenient and actually slower then using tabs.
> Squeak browsers are (comparatively) quick so I don't miss the tabs at all.

hm, interesting. But don't you think that it is easier to find a specific window with
tabs when you have a lot of them opened? Tabs do not overlap, tabs help you to
identify windows by just displaying their label/title/icon/color/whatever, tabs make
hidden windows visible and accessible, etc.
You see no value in that?
Most of the time I open a lot of windows (browsers, debuggers, inspectors,
workspaces, etc.) in Squeak, and sometimes they overlap, some windows get completely
hidden by others, and so on. Tabs would help me a lot to deal with that.

David

>> From: Giovanni Corriga <[hidden email]>
>> Reply-To: The general-purpose Squeak developers
>> list<[hidden email]>
>> To: The general-purpose Squeak developers
>> list<[hidden email]>
>> Subject: Re: Towards a better IDE in Squeak
>> Date: Tue, 20 Feb 2007 15:01:12 +0100
>>
>> Il giorno mar, 20/02/2007 alle 12.42 +0100, Janko MivÅ¡ek ha scritto:
>> > Hello Squeakers,
>> >
>> > Don't forget the simplest but most powerful addition: tabs! Tabs are a
>> > thing which make Firefox browser famous, IMHO, and I also find RB_Tabs
>> > goodie in VW indispensable.
>>
>> And they're also the only feature of Firefox that I positively _hate_.
>>
>> So, a plea to whoever is going to invent the IDE of the future: please,
>> please don't forget us SDI users.
>>
>> ;-)
>>
>> Giovanni
>>
>>
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> http://homepage.msn.com/zune?icid=hmetagline
>
>

Gary Chambers-4

RE: Towards a better IDE in Squeak

You could load one of the "Taskbar" packages from SqueakMap to fill that
need! Best of both worlds.

>
> hm, interesting. But don't you think that it is easier to find a
> specific window with
> tabs when you have a lot of them opened? Tabs do not overlap,
> tabs help you to
> identify windows by just displaying their
> label/title/icon/color/whatever, tabs make
> hidden windows visible and accessible, etc.
> You see no value in that?
> Most of the time I open a lot of windows (browsers, debuggers,
> inspectors,
> workspaces, etc.) in Squeak, and sometimes they overlap, some
> windows get completely
> hidden by others, and so on. Tabs would help me a lot to deal with that.
>
>
> David
>
>

Romain Robbes

Re: Towards a better IDE in Squeak

In reply to this post by Philippe Marschall

Hi Philippe,

> Most things in this list are either taken form other IDEs or bugfixes,
> so they might not be interesting from a research point of view:
>
> - Scoping of implemtors/senders to packages
> - back-button
> - what is is the status of services to enable refactoring support in
> the omnibrowser?

These are available in the latest version of BrowserBooster

> - integrate services into the duo-systembrowser

Is there a finished version of this browser? I had a quick look at,
and some of the services
were working for it. But since it was missing the button bar,
refactorings with services were not yet accessible ...

Romain

> Cheers
> Philippe
>
>
>
>

Marcel Weiher

Re: Towards a better IDE in Squeak

In reply to this post by stephane ducasse

On Feb 19, 2007, at 22:54 , stephane ducasse wrote:

> - sender/implementor widgets with tree for next sender/implementor
> - multiple method editing (wishker).
> But you know my list and crazy ideas.

But we don't!

Marcel

J J-6

Re: Towards a better IDE in Squeak

In reply to this post by Roel Wuyts

>From: Roel Wuyts <[hidden email]>
>Reply-To: The general-purpose Squeak developers
>list<[hidden email]>
>To: The general-purpose Squeak developers
>list<[hidden email]>
>Subject: Re: Towards a better IDE in Squeak
>Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2007 22:40:47 +0100
>
>Don't mistake the IDE with the language :-) In itself, and for those that
>like to have lots of panes with information, Eclipse is quite nice. Its
>completion features and problem resolvers are farther ahead than what I
>have seen for any Smalltalk environment. Of course. they have to be :-)
>:-) And even with all of these nifty features, developing Java in Eclipse
>is still tedious, cumbersome and slow compared to developing in Squeak.
>But this does not mean that I am not longing for a number of Eclipse (or
>even VisualWorks) features in Squeak :-)

Well ok. If they have something nice that we don't, let's steal it! :) I
guess I just couldn't get past the slowness. :)

_________________________________________________________________
http://homepage.msn.com/zune?icid=hmetagline

J J-6

Re: Towards a better IDE in Squeak

In reply to this post by David Röthlisberger

It is not that I see no value in it. But tabs are just the same behavior
that e.g. windows already has: a task bar. In fact, XP will even group the
browser windows all together if they can't be displayed side by side. At
that point the only difference between what windows has and tabs is one is
at the top, the other at the bottom.

But perhaps I misunderstood and you mean the taskbar/tab behavior in
general. In that case, yea sure. Something like that could certainly be
useful.

>From: David Röthlisberger <[hidden email]>
>Reply-To: The general-purpose Squeak developers
>list<[hidden email]>
>To: The general-purpose Squeak developers
>list<[hidden email]>
>Subject: Re: Towards a better IDE in Squeak
>Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2007 10:07:54 +0100
>
>J J schrieb:
>>Yea, I wouldn't overplay tabs too much. They are mostly only useful
>>because of (a) how the windows taskbar works and (b) the fact that firefox
>>only runs one instance of itself anyway so having a bunch of windows open
>>is less convenient and actually slower then using tabs. Squeak browsers
>>are (comparatively) quick so I don't miss the tabs at all.
>
>hm, interesting. But don't you think that it is easier to find a specific
>window with tabs when you have a lot of them opened? Tabs do not overlap,
>tabs help you to identify windows by just displaying their
>label/title/icon/color/whatever, tabs make hidden windows visible and
>accessible, etc.
>You see no value in that?
>Most of the time I open a lot of windows (browsers, debuggers, inspectors,
>workspaces, etc.) in Squeak, and sometimes they overlap, some windows get
>completely hidden by others, and so on. Tabs would help me a lot to deal
>with that.
>
>
>David
>
>>>From: Giovanni Corriga <[hidden email]>
>>>Reply-To: The general-purpose Squeak developers
>>>list<[hidden email]>
>>>To: The general-purpose Squeak developers
>>>list<[hidden email]>
>>>Subject: Re: Towards a better IDE in Squeak
>>>Date: Tue, 20 Feb 2007 15:01:12 +0100
>>>
>>>Il giorno mar, 20/02/2007 alle 12.42 +0100, Janko MivÅ¡ek ha scritto:
>>> > Hello Squeakers,
>>> >
>>> > Don't forget the simplest but most powerful addition: tabs! Tabs are a
>>> > thing which make Firefox browser famous, IMHO, and I also find RB_Tabs
>>> > goodie in VW indispensable.
>>>
>>>And they're also the only feature of Firefox that I positively _hate_.
>>>
>>>So, a plea to whoever is going to invent the IDE of the future: please,
>>>please don't forget us SDI users.
>>>
>>> ;-)
>>>
>>> Giovanni
>>>
>>>
>>
>>_________________________________________________________________
>>http://homepage.msn.com/zune?icid=hmetagline
>>
>>
>
>

_________________________________________________________________
With tax season right around the corner, make sure to follow these few
simple tips.
http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Taxes/PreparationTips/PreparationTips.aspx?icid=HMFebtagline

Milan Zimmermann-2

Re: Towards a better IDE in Squeak

In reply to this post by David Röthlisberger

On 2007 February 18 14:31, David Röthlisberger wrote:
<<snip>>

> Second, I would also like to do kind of empirical studies in the future
> to somehow validate the effectiveness and efficiency of new approaches
> for an IDE, hence I need subjects performing some experiments in these
> future IDEs and I also need data about how you use your IDE (e.g., how
> you browse source code, how and where you write source code, with which
> tools, etc.). Will you be willing to provide me with these data recorded
> by some non-invasive recordings tools you can simply load in your image
> and which will then save the recorded data to a file which you would
> then send to me?

You can count me in. I am not sure I am the right subject though, although I
have been coding for many years (out of which last 9 Java only), I am a
Smalltalk amateur. But I am very interested in what could be done to make the
IDE better, in fact I was thinking about making a video recording of my 5
most confusing Squeak IDE actions (to name one, adding a new class while
looking at an existing class still makes me madly clicking to make
the "Object subclass:#name" to show :) )

> Are you also willing to perform some experiments in new
> IDEs, e.g. trying and playing with them, use them for a project of
> yours, etc.?

Yes, although my project may not be a practical size...

Milan

> For me it is important to know if I can motivate enough people to do a
> serious empirical study. Without that, I would have a hard time to
> "prove" that a new approach to e.g. navigate source code is indeed
> useful and promising, because this is very much dependent on personal
> feelings and impressions. Only a broader study can hence "prove" the
> general usefulness (or uselessness) of such a new approach or metaphor.
>
> Thanks for your help.
>
> Kind regards,
> David

Roel Wuyts

Re: Towards a better IDE in Squeak

In reply to this post by Romain Robbes

Hi Romain,

I did not receive any feedback for the DuoSystemBrowser, so I just
use it for my personal coding but haven't added much else. I take
feature requests though :-)

The reason the button bar is not in it is that it is not directly
supported by OB (yet :-) ). I know it can be done, but since I do not
really use the buttons and since nobody asked... :-)

On 22 Feb 2007, at 22 February/12:31, Romain Robbes wrote:

> Hi Philippe,
>
>> Most things in this list are either taken form other IDEs or
>> bugfixes,
>> so they might not be interesting from a research point of view:
>>
>> - Scoping of implemtors/senders to packages
>> - back-button
>> - what is is the status of services to enable refactoring support in
>> the omnibrowser?
>
> These are available in the latest version of BrowserBooster
>
>> - integrate services into the duo-systembrowser
>
> Is there a finished version of this browser? I had a quick look at,
> and some of the services
> were working for it. But since it was missing the button bar,
> refactorings with services were not yet accessible ...
>
> Romain
>
>> Cheers
>> Philippe
>>
>>
>>
>>
>

123