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Stefan Schmiedl

Re: [vwnc] Developers from other languages trying Smalltalk

On Thu, 24 Jul 2008 09:46:03 +0200
Joachim Geidel <[hidden email]> wrote:

> - Not even knowing that I have to do this, and feeling bad when I find out.

Hehe ... I always felt good when I "discovered" another missing piece
of the puzzle :-)

> - No advice about which ones to load, except the categorization in the
> parcel manager.
> - Sometimes I load an older parcel from the contributions, only to find out
> that it breaks my image.

+1 on those two...

> Without GHStoreEnhance, I wouldn't even see which version of which package I
> have loaded! Without RBTabbedToolsets, I wouldn't see that a browser has
> more than one view! The tab controls don't have a "close" button on the
> tabs!

HkEnhancedTabControl puts individual close buttons on tabs.

s.
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Dennis smith-4

Re: [vwnc] Developers from other languages trying Smalltalk

In reply to this post by Terry Raymond

I have been saying for years that its too hard to get started with VW
(VWNC is no different). I started with VW1.x -- it was very simple.
We had been asked to do a quick (need it yesterday) project in VW.
Had it not been trivial to get started, we would have failed, given up,
and would be coding in C++ or some other app dev system.

One thing that bugged me in VW7 or so was its insistance on asking
my what package I wanted to put something into -- how would I know?
I just want to create a class and do something.

The other thing I always thought would be useful in selling VW would be
a sample app -- something that did something "neat". Then a bit of a
tutorial on looking at and changing it.

Terry Raymond wrote:

The VWNC image could be created with the environmental
enhancements already loaded. Although, I think it would
also be important for the VWNC CD to include a minimal image.

Another possibility would be to modify the settings pages so
they would auto load the approporiate enhancement parcel when
an enhancement is requested.

Terry
 
===========================================================
Terry Raymond
Crafted Smalltalk
80 Lazywood Ln.
Tiverton, RI  02878
(401) 624-4517      [hidden email]
<http://www.craftedsmalltalk.com>
===========================================================

-----Original Message-----
From: [hidden email] [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Joachim Geidel
Sent: Thursday, July 24, 2008 3:46 AM
To: Arden Thomas; 'VWNC List'
Subject: Re: [vwnc] Developers from other languages trying Smalltalk

Hi Arden,

- If we made it so that you could write Smalltalk code in your favorite
editor, would that be a bridge to help you become acquainted with Smalltalk?
- Second, would the comfort it brings overcome losing the power that the
integration currently gives you? (hard question for non-Smalltalkers)

I agree with those who wrote that the editors in VisualWorks have to be
enhanced (including AutoComplete, RBCodeHighlighting, using standard
keyboard shortcuts, adding keyboard macros for things like inserting
ifFalse:, etc. etc.).

Antony Blakey has done some very creative work with VW recently, some of
which would be nice to see in the base image, e.g. his Aqua LookPolicy for
MacOS-X and his layout enhancements. Andre Schnoor's Chimera LookPolicy
would also give VW a fresher look. IMHO, old-fashioned looks shape the
perception of a piece of software the first time you see it on the screen. A
split-second may be sufficient to decide if someone likes it or not. The
decision process may not be very rational, but that's how our stone-age
primate brains work (no offense intended to anybody in particular ;-) ).

And no, I don't think that using Emacs, VisualSomething or whatever would
help learning Smalltalk.

What would put me off if I were a newbie are things like these:
- Having to load tons of additional parcels manually until I have a decent
environment (AutoComplete, RBCodeHighlighting, GHStoreEnhance,
ExtraEmphases, GHTools, StoreGlorp, LessProgress, NewPrerequisiteEngine,
RBRegexExtensions, RBStoreExtensions, RBTabbedToolsets, SearchLight,
Tools-StartupOrderingTool, WindowsGoodies, just to name a few).
- Not even knowing that I have to do this, and feeling bad when I find out.
- No advice about which ones to load, except the categorization in the
parcel manager.
- Some of them may  not even be in the category view of the parcel manager.
- Sometimes I load an older parcel from the contributions, only to find out
that it breaks my image.

Without GHStoreEnhance, I wouldn't even see which version of which package I
have loaded! Without RBTabbedToolsets, I wouldn't see that a browser has
more than one view! The tab controls don't have a "close" button on the
tabs!

It's the little things which pile up to a non-usability mess here.

Another aspect implicit in your questions is whether a different kind of
view would make it easier to start with Smalltalk. I don't know, but the
file-like view which Antony Blakey has proposed sounds interesting.

Best regards,
Joachim Geidel


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-- 
Dennis Smith                 		         +1 416.798.7948
Cherniak Software Development Corporation   Fax: +1 416.798.0948
509-2001 Sheppard Avenue East        [hidden email]
Toronto, ON M2J 4Z8              <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="sip:dennis@CherniakSoftware.com">sip:dennis@...
Canada			         http://www.CherniakSoftware.com
Entrance off Yorkland Blvd south of Sheppard Ave east of the DVP

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giorgiof

Re: [vwnc] Developers from other languages trying Smalltalk

In reply to this post by Joachim Geidel

Arden

On 7/24/08, Joachim Geidel <[hidden email]> wrote:

Hi Arden,

Antony Blakey has done some very creative work with VW recently, some of
which would be nice to see in the base image, e.g. his Aqua LookPolicy for
MacOS-X and his layout enhancements. Andre Schnoor's Chimera LookPolicy
would also give VW a fresher look. IMHO, old-fashioned looks shape the
perception of a piece of software the first time you see it on the screen. A
split-second may be sufficient to decide if someone likes it or not. The
decision process may not be very rational, but that's how our stone-age
primate brains work (no offense intended to anybody in particular ;-) ).

+ 1. Antony works on Mac is very good, and Andre one is astonishing. Reinventing the weel or reuse? (if there are no copyright problems)

At least include what is possible (or do the same your way... for me as a customer just matters the end result...)

Giorgio

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Antony Blakey-2

Re: [vwnc] Developers from other languages trying Smalltalk

In reply to this post by Nowak, Helge

On 24/07/2008, at 11:11 PM, Nowak, Helge wrote:

> THX Jochen,
>
> you are summing up my opinion very well. I fully agree with Eliot
> (and Andre, Antony, Arden, Colin, David, Donald, Steve, and all) who
> oppose to de-volution of the tool set. Enhancing and making it
> comply to widely used standards out of the box is key for lowering
> the entry barrier. And: documentation, tutorials, examples etc. pp..
> Replacing good (maybe not perfect) tools by inadequate ones is not
> the way to go.

Since you mentioned me by name, I should say that IMO having source in
files, using git etc and hence being able to use something like
TextMate, is a valuable goal in it's own right. I don't think of it as
substitution, rather of broadening the options. And as I say, there
are use cases for which external editor integration, as I've done in
MirrorImage, is useful. In any case, MirrorImage is also a rethinking
of the way class/namespace definition and partitioning is done, plus a
mechanism for Ruby-like metaprogramming, and the external editor stuff
is a side effect. This doesn't threaten Smalltalk, or the existing way
of working.

My response to Arden was mean to say that IMO simply providing
'External Editing' for it's own sake, is less useful unless it is done
in the context of more extensive changes (once again, such as
MirrorImage) that aren't zero-impact. There are many things, easy, non-
intrusive, backwards compatible, that can be done to improve the UI.
So far I've done quite a bit on making VW on OSX *look* reasonable,
and now I'm attacking the functionality.

Smalltalk is SO powerful, you'd think that their IDEs would be
indistinguishable from magic, but they aren't. They are, in general,
crap compared to current state of the art. It seems to me that they
were so far ahead of everything else, for so long, that they stopped
for a rest and the world past them by.

Antony Blakey
--------------------------
CTO, Linkuistics Pty Ltd
Ph: 0438 840 787

A priest, a minister and a rabbi walk into a bar. The bartender says
"What is this, a joke?"

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James Robertson-7

Re: [vwnc] Developers from other languages trying Smalltalk

In reply to this post by Terry Raymond

I should note <why> these various add ons aren't part of the base
right now. It boils down to integration issues. Many of them were
built in the "good enough for my purposes" train of thought (which is
not to say anything bad about them). That's fine for an optional add
on, but it's a little dicier for something that will be part of the
product. For that to happen, overrides need to be rationalized, any
menu picks/kbd shortcuts have to be rationalized with the system -
that sort of thing. To sum up, they have to go from "good enough for
an add on" to "maintainable as part of the product"

James Robertson
Cincom Smalltalk Product Evangelist
http://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/blog/blogView
Talk Small and Carry a Big Class Library

On Jul 24, 2008, at 9:47 AM, Terry Raymond wrote:

> The VWNC image could be created with the environmental
> enhancements already loaded. Although, I think it would
> also be important for the VWNC CD to include a minimal image.
>
> Another possibility would be to modify the settings pages so
> they would auto load the approporiate enhancement parcel when
> an enhancement is requested.
>
> Terry
>
> ===========================================================
> Terry Raymond
> Crafted Smalltalk
> 80 Lazywood Ln.
> Tiverton, RI 02878
> (401) 624-4517 [hidden email]
> <http://www.craftedsmalltalk.com>
> ===========================================================
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On
>> Behalf Of Joachim Geidel
>> Sent: Thursday, July 24, 2008 3:46 AM
>> To: Arden Thomas; 'VWNC List'
>> Subject: Re: [vwnc] Developers from other languages trying Smalltalk
>>
>> Hi Arden,
>>
>>> - If we made it so that you could write Smalltalk code in your
>>> favorite
>>> editor, would that be a bridge to help you become acquainted with
>>> Smalltalk?
>>> - Second, would the comfort it brings overcome losing the power
>>> that the
>>> integration currently gives you? (hard question for non-
>>> Smalltalkers)
>>
>> I agree with those who wrote that the editors in VisualWorks have
>> to be
>> enhanced (including AutoComplete, RBCodeHighlighting, using standard
>> keyboard shortcuts, adding keyboard macros for things like inserting
>> ifFalse:, etc. etc.).
>>
>> Antony Blakey has done some very creative work with VW recently,
>> some of
>> which would be nice to see in the base image, e.g. his Aqua
>> LookPolicy for
>> MacOS-X and his layout enhancements. Andre Schnoor's Chimera
>> LookPolicy
>> would also give VW a fresher look. IMHO, old-fashioned looks shape
>> the
>> perception of a piece of software the first time you see it on the
>> screen. A
>> split-second may be sufficient to decide if someone likes it or
>> not. The
>> decision process may not be very rational, but that's how our stone-
>> age
>> primate brains work (no offense intended to anybody in
>> particular ;-) ).
>>
>> And no, I don't think that using Emacs, VisualSomething or whatever
>> would
>> help learning Smalltalk.
>>
>> What would put me off if I were a newbie are things like these:
>> - Having to load tons of additional parcels manually until I have a
>> decent
>> environment (AutoComplete, RBCodeHighlighting, GHStoreEnhance,
>> ExtraEmphases, GHTools, StoreGlorp, LessProgress,
>> NewPrerequisiteEngine,
>> RBRegexExtensions, RBStoreExtensions, RBTabbedToolsets, SearchLight,
>> Tools-StartupOrderingTool, WindowsGoodies, just to name a few).
>> - Not even knowing that I have to do this, and feeling bad when I
>> find out.
>> - No advice about which ones to load, except the categorization in
>> the
>> parcel manager.
>> - Some of them may not even be in the category view of the parcel
>> manager.
>> - Sometimes I load an older parcel from the contributions, only to
>> find out
>> that it breaks my image.
>>
>> Without GHStoreEnhance, I wouldn't even see which version of which
>> package I
>> have loaded! Without RBTabbedToolsets, I wouldn't see that a
>> browser has
>> more than one view! The tab controls don't have a "close" button on
>> the
>> tabs!
>>
>> It's the little things which pile up to a non-usability mess here.
>>
>> Another aspect implicit in your questions is whether a different
>> kind of
>> view would make it easier to start with Smalltalk. I don't know,
>> but the
>> file-like view which Antony Blakey has proposed sounds interesting.
>>
>> Best regards,
>> Joachim Geidel
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> vwnc mailing list
>> [hidden email]
>> http://lists.cs.uiuc.edu/mailman/listinfo/vwnc
>
> _______________________________________________
> vwnc mailing list
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> http://lists.cs.uiuc.edu/mailman/listinfo/vwnc
>

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Steven Kelly

Re: [vwnc] Developers from other languages trying Smalltalk

In reply to this post by Arden Thomas

Re: [vwnc] Developers from other languages trying Smalltalk

Arden Thomas wrote:
> Hi Steven;
>
> You could be right at not getting a second shot.
>
> But I am hoping that, since, Smalltalk was far enough ahead of its time the
> first time, the second time will be the charm. :-)
>
> Even if we were not able to become a truly mainstream language, I'd like to
> be a bigger niche player. Still plenty of room to grow!

I definitely agree. My comment wasn't that we shouldn't try, but that as Smalltalk _users_ we shouldn't worry about any lack of success by Smalltalk in terms of money or market share. Smalltalk vendors are of course trying too, and a certain level of frustration is only right. Smalltalk is just one of those odd things that users love so much, they feel bad if the rest of the world doesn't like it. Sadly, I think that in most teams that would pay vendors, language choices aren't made by developers, so our enthusiasm as users doesn't help much.

Smalltalk can be a bigger niche player, and all power to you as you achieve that step by step. I'd just advise a little caution in how much you run after today's buzzword, whatever that might be. Like in climbing, if you reach for the next foothold and find it doesn't hold, you can wind up in trouble if you've overstretched away from your current niche. My own view, which may be totally wrong, is that reaching after today's buzzword is far more a marketing effort than a technical effort - the product can stay the same (so not losing the existing customers) and continue to improve in that space, while a new set of brochures, web pages, demos, talks etc. target the new market. I've not looked at Web Velocity yet, but it sounds like you might have similar thoughts. Good luck!

All the best,

Steve

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Thomas Brodt

Re: [vwnc] Developers from other languages trying Smalltalk

In reply to this post by Antony Blakey-2

Antony Blakey schrieb:

> Since you mentioned me by name, I should say that IMO having source in
> files, using git etc and hence being able to use something like
> TextMate, is a valuable goal in it's own right. I don't think of it as
> substitution, rather of broadening the options. And as I say, there
> are use cases for which external editor integration, as I've done in
> MirrorImage, is useful. In any case, MirrorImage is also a rethinking
> of the way class/namespace definition and partitioning is done, plus a
> mechanism for Ruby-like metaprogramming, and the external editor stuff
> is a side effect. This doesn't threaten Smalltalk, or the existing way
> of working.
>

it is not completely the same thing, but that analogy comes to my mind:
You can treat your music collection with iTunes, or manage your music
collection in directory structures with your favorite ripping and mp3
tagging tool. Still it's all about mp3 files.
You can treat your photos with Photoshop Elements, or use whatever jpg
viewer and Exif tagging tools. It's all about jpg files.
Each way has its advantages and its drawbacks. Using both ways sometimes
has its hurdles, though.

Why not have the choice, based on user preferences or based on best tool
for the purpose? It's all about Smalltalk source code.

Thomas

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Chris Winemiller

Re: [vwnc] Developers from other languages trying Smalltalk

In reply to this post by Terry Raymond

There must also be an easy way to *unload* for those who don't want the enhancements.

One of my gripes about VW 7.x is that you can load a complex feature (like Store for Postgres) by picking a single parcel and loading it. But if you want to *unload* it, you can't pick just one parcel in your image and have it unload everything that it loaded. You have to know what got loaded, and manually unload the parcels in the proper order. Similarly for SUnit. And I'll bet that sometimes, you can't even unload a complex feature that you just loaded; but I'm speculating on that.

Chris

Terry Raymond wrote:

The VWNC image could be created with the environmental
enhancements already loaded. Although, I think it would
also be important for the VWNC CD to include a minimal image.

Another possibility would be to modify the settings pages so
they would auto load the approporiate enhancement parcel when
an enhancement is requested.

Terry
 
===========================================================
Terry Raymond
Crafted Smalltalk
80 Lazywood Ln.
Tiverton, RI  02878
(401) 624-4517      [hidden email]
<http://www.craftedsmalltalk.com>
===========================================================

-----Original Message-----
From: [hidden email] [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Joachim Geidel
Sent: Thursday, July 24, 2008 3:46 AM
To: Arden Thomas; 'VWNC List'
Subject: Re: [vwnc] Developers from other languages trying Smalltalk

Hi Arden,

- If we made it so that you could write Smalltalk code in your favorite
editor, would that be a bridge to help you become acquainted with Smalltalk?
- Second, would the comfort it brings overcome losing the power that the
integration currently gives you? (hard question for non-Smalltalkers)

I agree with those who wrote that the editors in VisualWorks have to be
enhanced (including AutoComplete, RBCodeHighlighting, using standard
keyboard shortcuts, adding keyboard macros for things like inserting
ifFalse:, etc. etc.).

Antony Blakey has done some very creative work with VW recently, some of
which would be nice to see in the base image, e.g. his Aqua LookPolicy for
MacOS-X and his layout enhancements. Andre Schnoor's Chimera LookPolicy
would also give VW a fresher look. IMHO, old-fashioned looks shape the
perception of a piece of software the first time you see it on the screen. A
split-second may be sufficient to decide if someone likes it or not. The
decision process may not be very rational, but that's how our stone-age
primate brains work (no offense intended to anybody in particular ;-) ).

And no, I don't think that using Emacs, VisualSomething or whatever would
help learning Smalltalk.

What would put me off if I were a newbie are things like these:
- Having to load tons of additional parcels manually until I have a decent
environment (AutoComplete, RBCodeHighlighting, GHStoreEnhance,
ExtraEmphases, GHTools, StoreGlorp, LessProgress, NewPrerequisiteEngine,
RBRegexExtensions, RBStoreExtensions, RBTabbedToolsets, SearchLight,
Tools-StartupOrderingTool, WindowsGoodies, just to name a few).
- Not even knowing that I have to do this, and feeling bad when I find out.
- No advice about which ones to load, except the categorization in the
parcel manager.
- Some of them may  not even be in the category view of the parcel manager.
- Sometimes I load an older parcel from the contributions, only to find out
that it breaks my image.

Without GHStoreEnhance, I wouldn't even see which version of which package I
have loaded! Without RBTabbedToolsets, I wouldn't see that a browser has
more than one view! The tab controls don't have a "close" button on the
tabs!

It's the little things which pile up to a non-usability mess here.

Another aspect implicit in your questions is whether a different kind of
view would make it easier to start with Smalltalk. I don't know, but the
file-like view which Antony Blakey has proposed sounds interesting.

Best regards,
Joachim Geidel


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Colin Putney

Re: [vwnc] Developers from other languages trying Smalltalk

On 24-Jul-08, at 8:54 AM, Chris Winemiller wrote:

> One of my gripes about VW 7.x is that...

Not to pick on you, Chris, but I didn't want to get into a general
laundry list of ways to improve VW. That very quickly degenerates to
"the way to attract new Smalltalk developers is to make Smalltalk
better."

I wanted to make a very narrow and specific point, which I hope
doesn't get lost in all this: the text editor in a vanilla VW image
sucks. As a tool for editing text, it's awful.

It's true that editing text plays a lesser role in Smalltalk than in
other languages. It's true that experienced Smalltalk developers can
work around the problems or just get used to them. But for most
programmers, writing programs is synonymous with editing text. The
text editor is the one part of the Smalltalk environment that is
similar to what they already know, and which they are in a position to
make a judgement about the quality of the experience.

And judged in that light, the VW editor just screams FAIL. Who cares
about refactorings or the debugger when cut and paste is broken? For a
little perspective, consider this: even Squeak, which has to be
considered the ultimate in weird-interface-that-scares-people-away,
gets this stuff right.

So instead of providing a way to use *any* text editor, how about just
providing a decent text editor?

Colin
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Terry Raymond

Re: [vwnc] Developers from other languages trying Smalltalk

In reply to this post by James Robertson-7

Jim

Ok.

As you have said, do you want to run a good enough system
like Windows or a great one like the Mac.

Terry

===========================================================
Terry Raymond
Crafted Smalltalk
80 Lazywood Ln.
Tiverton, RI 02878
(401) 624-4517 [hidden email]
<http://www.craftedsmalltalk.com>
===========================================================

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of James Robertson
> Sent: Thursday, July 24, 2008 10:40 AM
> To: VW NC
> Subject: Re: [vwnc] Developers from other languages trying Smalltalk
>
> I should note <why> these various add ons aren't part of the base
> right now. It boils down to integration issues. Many of them were
> built in the "good enough for my purposes" train of thought (which is
> not to say anything bad about them). That's fine for an optional add
> on, but it's a little dicier for something that will be part of the
> product. For that to happen, overrides need to be rationalized, any
> menu picks/kbd shortcuts have to be rationalized with the system -
> that sort of thing. To sum up, they have to go from "good enough for
> an add on" to "maintainable as part of the product"
>
>
> James Robertson
> Cincom Smalltalk Product Evangelist
> http://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/blog/blogView
> Talk Small and Carry a Big Class Library
>
>
>
>
> On Jul 24, 2008, at 9:47 AM, Terry Raymond wrote:
>
> > The VWNC image could be created with the environmental
> > enhancements already loaded. Although, I think it would
> > also be important for the VWNC CD to include a minimal image.
> >
> > Another possibility would be to modify the settings pages so
> > they would auto load the approporiate enhancement parcel when
> > an enhancement is requested.
> >
> > Terry
> >
> > ===========================================================
> > Terry Raymond
> > Crafted Smalltalk
> > 80 Lazywood Ln.
> > Tiverton, RI 02878
> > (401) 624-4517 [hidden email]
> > <http://www.craftedsmalltalk.com>
> > ===========================================================
> >
> >> -----Original Message-----
> >> From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On
> >> Behalf Of Joachim Geidel
> >> Sent: Thursday, July 24, 2008 3:46 AM
> >> To: Arden Thomas; 'VWNC List'
> >> Subject: Re: [vwnc] Developers from other languages trying Smalltalk
> >>
> >> Hi Arden,
> >>
> >>> - If we made it so that you could write Smalltalk code in your
> >>> favorite
> >>> editor, would that be a bridge to help you become acquainted with
> >>> Smalltalk?
> >>> - Second, would the comfort it brings overcome losing the power
> >>> that the
> >>> integration currently gives you? (hard question for non-
> >>> Smalltalkers)
> >>
> >> I agree with those who wrote that the editors in VisualWorks have
> >> to be
> >> enhanced (including AutoComplete, RBCodeHighlighting, using standard
> >> keyboard shortcuts, adding keyboard macros for things like inserting
> >> ifFalse:, etc. etc.).
> >>
> >> Antony Blakey has done some very creative work with VW recently,
> >> some of
> >> which would be nice to see in the base image, e.g. his Aqua
> >> LookPolicy for
> >> MacOS-X and his layout enhancements. Andre Schnoor's Chimera
> >> LookPolicy
> >> would also give VW a fresher look. IMHO, old-fashioned looks shape
> >> the
> >> perception of a piece of software the first time you see it on the
> >> screen. A
> >> split-second may be sufficient to decide if someone likes it or
> >> not. The
> >> decision process may not be very rational, but that's how our stone-
> >> age
> >> primate brains work (no offense intended to anybody in
> >> particular ;-) ).
> >>
> >> And no, I don't think that using Emacs, VisualSomething or whatever
> >> would
> >> help learning Smalltalk.
> >>
> >> What would put me off if I were a newbie are things like these:
> >> - Having to load tons of additional parcels manually until I have a
> >> decent
> >> environment (AutoComplete, RBCodeHighlighting, GHStoreEnhance,
> >> ExtraEmphases, GHTools, StoreGlorp, LessProgress,
> >> NewPrerequisiteEngine,
> >> RBRegexExtensions, RBStoreExtensions, RBTabbedToolsets, SearchLight,
> >> Tools-StartupOrderingTool, WindowsGoodies, just to name a few).
> >> - Not even knowing that I have to do this, and feeling bad when I
> >> find out.
> >> - No advice about which ones to load, except the categorization in
> >> the
> >> parcel manager.
> >> - Some of them may not even be in the category view of the parcel
> >> manager.
> >> - Sometimes I load an older parcel from the contributions, only to
> >> find out
> >> that it breaks my image.
> >>
> >> Without GHStoreEnhance, I wouldn't even see which version of which
> >> package I
> >> have loaded! Without RBTabbedToolsets, I wouldn't see that a
> >> browser has
> >> more than one view! The tab controls don't have a "close" button on
> >> the
> >> tabs!
> >>
> >> It's the little things which pile up to a non-usability mess here.
> >>
> >> Another aspect implicit in your questions is whether a different
> >> kind of
> >> view would make it easier to start with Smalltalk. I don't know,
> >> but the
> >> file-like view which Antony Blakey has proposed sounds interesting.
> >>
> >> Best regards,
> >> Joachim Geidel
> >>
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> vwnc mailing list
> >> [hidden email]
> >> http://lists.cs.uiuc.edu/mailman/listinfo/vwnc
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > vwnc mailing list
> > [hidden email]
> > http://lists.cs.uiuc.edu/mailman/listinfo/vwnc
> >
>
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Holger Kleinsorgen-4

Re: [vwnc] Developers from other languages trying Smalltalk

In reply to this post by Colin Putney

Colin Putney schrieb:
> And judged in that light, the VW editor just screams FAIL. Who cares
> about refactorings or the debugger when cut and paste is broken?

not to mention that error messages of the compiler are still simply
pasted into the source code, creating a total mess.

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Eliot Miranda-2

Re: [vwnc] Developers from other languages trying Smalltalk

On Thu, Jul 24, 2008 at 11:03 AM, Holger Kleinsorgen <[hidden email]> wrote:

Colin Putney schrieb:

> And judged in that light, the VW editor just screams FAIL. Who cares
> about refactorings or the debugger when cut and paste is broken?

not to mention that error messages of the compiler are still simply
pasted into the source code, creating a total mess.

I disagree (strongly) that this is a minus. That error messages appear exactly where they occur is great. They must be selected so that they're easy to delete. But please, please, please don't put them somewhere else so that I have to figure out to what they apply.

Or are you thinking of some whizzy floating error message solution instead?

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Terry Raymond

Re: [vwnc] Developers from other languages trying Smalltalk

Well, if one wanted to expend the time and resources, one could

create a better editor.

Suppose, the editor had a column on the left side for showing errors.

When you select an error it would highlight the offending code.

For some errors, the compiler would simply stop and produce only one

error. But, for others it could produce a list of errors, such as undeclared

refs.

But, considering the size of most smalltalk methods such an editor

would be overkill.

Terry

===========================================================
Terry Raymond
Crafted Smalltalk
80 Lazywood Ln.
Tiverton, RI 02878
(401) 624-4517 [hidden email]
<http://www.craftedsmalltalk.com>
===========================================================

From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Eliot Miranda
Sent: Thursday, July 24, 2008 3:53 PM
To: Holger Kleinsorgen
Cc: VWNC List
Subject: Re: [vwnc] Developers from other languages trying Smalltalk

On Thu, Jul 24, 2008 at 11:03 AM, Holger Kleinsorgen <[hidden email]> wrote:

Colin Putney schrieb:

> And judged in that light, the VW editor just screams FAIL. Who cares
> about refactorings or the debugger when cut and paste is broken?

not to mention that error messages of the compiler are still simply
pasted into the source code, creating a total mess.

Or are you thinking of some whizzy floating error message solution instead?

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Boris Popov, DeepCove Labs (SNN)

Re: [vwnc] Developers from other languages trying Smalltalk

I think we absolutely need to upgrade the text editor; even Notepad++
does a better job editing Smalltalk.

-Boris

--
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DeepCove Labs Ltd.
4th floor 595 Howe Street
Vancouver, Canada V6C 2T5
http://tinyurl.com/r7uw4

[hidden email]

CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE

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Thank you.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On
Behalf

> Of Terry Raymond
> Sent: Thursday, July 24, 2008 1:22 PM
> To: 'VWNC List'
> Subject: Re: [vwnc] Developers from other languages trying Smalltalk
>
> Well, if one wanted to expend the time and resources, one could
>
> create a better editor.
>
>
>
> Suppose, the editor had a column on the left side for showing errors.
>
> When you select an error it would highlight the offending code.
>
> For some errors, the compiler would simply stop and produce only one
>
> error. But, for others it could produce a list of errors, such as
> undeclared
>
> refs.
>
>
>
> But, considering the size of most smalltalk methods such an editor
>
> would be overkill.
>
> Terry
>
> ===========================================================
> Terry Raymond
> Crafted Smalltalk
> 80 Lazywood Ln.
> Tiverton, RI 02878
> (401) 624-4517 [hidden email]
> <http://www.craftedsmalltalk.com>
> ===========================================================
>
> ________________________________
>
> From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On

Behalf

> Of Eliot Miranda
> Sent: Thursday, July 24, 2008 3:53 PM
> To: Holger Kleinsorgen
> Cc: VWNC List
> Subject: Re: [vwnc] Developers from other languages trying Smalltalk
>
>
>
>
>
> On Thu, Jul 24, 2008 at 11:03 AM, Holger Kleinsorgen <h.kleinsorgen@i-
> views.de> wrote:
>
> Colin Putney schrieb:
>
> > And judged in that light, the VW editor just screams FAIL. Who cares
> > about refactorings or the debugger when cut and paste is broken?
>
> not to mention that error messages of the compiler are still simply
> pasted into the source code, creating a total mess.
>
>
>
> I disagree (strongly) that this is a minus. That error messages

appear
> exactly where they occur is great. They must be selected so that

they're
> easy to delete. But please, please, please don't put them somewhere
else

> so that I have to figure out to what they apply.
>
>
>
> Or are you thinking of some whizzy floating error message solution
> instead?
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> vwnc mailing list
> [hidden email]
> http://lists.cs.uiuc.edu/mailman/listinfo/vwnc
>
>

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notepad.png (47K) Download Attachment

Travis Griggs-3

Re: [vwnc] Developers from other languages trying Smalltalk

In reply to this post by Eliot Miranda-2

On Jul 24, 2008, at 12:52 PM, Eliot Miranda wrote:

> On Thu, Jul 24, 2008 at 11:03 AM, Holger Kleinsorgen <[hidden email]
> > wrote:
> Colin Putney schrieb:
> > And judged in that light, the VW editor just screams FAIL. Who cares
> > about refactorings or the debugger when cut and paste is broken?
>
> not to mention that error messages of the compiler are still simply
> pasted into the source code, creating a total mess.
>
> I disagree (strongly) that this is a minus. That error messages
> appear exactly where they occur is great. They must be selected so
> that they're easy to delete. But please, please, please don't put
> them somewhere else so that I have to figure out to what they apply.
>
> Or are you thinking of some whizzy floating error message solution
> instead?

I have no idea what others think of. :)

But if it were me doing it... I'd do a wizzy floating message. If I
ever get a chance to do OnBeyondExtraEmphasesToo, that type of
interactive text annotation is exactly the type of use case I want for
it.

--
Travis Griggs
Objologist
What's next, Intel Processors branded with "Apple Outside" stickers?

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jtuchel

Re: [vwnc] Developers from other languages trying Smalltalk

In reply to this post by Terry Raymond

Terry Raymond schrieb:

> Suppose, the editor had a column on the left side for showing errors.

... and breakpoints, and possibly a marker for Smalllint bugs ...

> When you select an error it would highlight the offending code.

That would be nice.

> But, considering the size of most smalltalk methods such an editor
> would be overkill.

That's possibly true in an ideal Smalltalk project. I've seen lots of
Smalltalk methods that would fill three or four printed pages. These
methods were written about a decade ago and nobody dared touching them.
The developers who wrote them were cross-trained Cobol-developers these
days and produced very Cobol-like control structures.
So if you have to maintain old and bad code and want to work your way
through code smells, many of Eclipse's features are very helpful (like
colouring all occurences of the word under the cursor etc.).
So I doubt such enhancements would be overkill, because I'd guess a lot
of the smalltalk code we have to handle today is of the quality I
mentioned. Our projects consist of methods that were written on 286
processors under OS/2 ;-)

Joachim

>
> Terry
>
> ===========================================================
> Terry Raymond
> Crafted Smalltalk
> 80 Lazywood Ln.
> Tiverton, RI 02878
> (401) 624-4517 [hidden email]
> <http://www.craftedsmalltalk.com>
> ===========================================================

--
visit my blog at http://www.joachim-tuchel.de
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Objektfabrik Joachim Tuchel mailto:[hidden email]
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Antony Blakey-2

Re: [vwnc] Developers from other languages trying Smalltalk

In reply to this post by Holger Kleinsorgen-4

On 25/07/2008, at 3:33 AM, Holger Kleinsorgen wrote:

> Colin Putney schrieb:
>> And judged in that light, the VW editor just screams FAIL. Who cares
>> about refactorings or the debugger when cut and paste is broken?
>
> not to mention that error messages of the compiler are still simply
> pasted into the source code, creating a total mess.

It should look like this : http://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/userblogs/antony/blogView?showComments=true&printTitle=Using_LLVM_SSA_and/or_C_in_methods_-_part_2&entry=3373039513

Antony Blakey
-------------
CTO, Linkuistics Pty Ltd
Ph: 0438 840 787

Some defeats are instalments to victory.
-- Jacob Riis

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Colin Putney

Re: [vwnc] Developers from other languages trying Smalltalk

In reply to this post by Eliot Miranda-2

On 24-Jul-08, at 12:52 PM, Eliot Miranda wrote:

On Thu, Jul 24, 2008 at 11:03 AM, Holger Kleinsorgen <[hidden email]> wrote:
Colin Putney schrieb:

> And judged in that light, the VW editor just screams FAIL. Who cares
> about refactorings or the debugger when cut and paste is broken?

not to mention that error messages of the compiler are still simply
pasted into the source code, creating a total mess.

I disagree (strongly) that this is a minus. That error messages appear exactly where they occur is great. They must be selected so that they're easy to delete. But please, please, please don't put them somewhere else so that I have to figure out to what they apply.

Agreed. I think the way syntax errors are reported is actually quite elegant.

But even if we think we can do better, this is not the kind of problem I was complaining about.

A mainstream developer might be surprised the first time he encounters an embedded error message. He might even click somewhere and lose the selection, causing him to have to manually edit out the error message. But after this happens once or twice, he'll catch on pretty quickly and develop the habit of hitting delete to immediately erase the error message. He has to build a new habit, but it's pretty obvious what the new habit should be, he doesn't have to unlearn anything.

Compare that to this problem I ran into when starting out in VW. I apparently have the habit of doing the following sequence of actions when editing text:

- select some text

- cut

- select some other text

- delete

- type something

- paste

Everywhere but VW, that leads to the text I cut being inserted back into the document. In VW, I get the text that I *deleted.* The text I wanted to move is gone, and the text I wanted to get rid of is preserved. Argh!

The habits I've developed from working with computers *since I was a kid* work against me. It took me weeks to figure out exactly what was going wrong, and then another week or two until I stumbled across the NoCutDelete package. Even after I knew that I had to avoid deleting a selection, I couldn't do it - the habits were too deeply engrained.

And the VW behavior is just silly - why have two separate editing operations that are exactly the same? Why is there no way to delete text without destroying the clipboard? Even if you ignore the conventions that the rest of the world uses, this is bad design for a text editor.

Or are you thinking of some whizzy floating error message solution instead?

I'm an Apple fanboy, I love whizzy eye-candy. But it's a waste of effort if the basic functionality is broken.

Colin

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Travis Griggs-3

Re: [vwnc] Developers from other languages trying Smalltalk

On Jul 24, 2008, at 5:47 PM, Colin Putney wrote:

> Agreed. I think the way syntax errors are reported is actually quite
> elegant.
>
> But even if we think we can do better, this is not the kind of
> problem I was complaining about.
>
> A mainstream developer might be surprised the first time he
> encounters an embedded error message. He might even click somewhere
> and lose the selection, causing him to have to manually edit out the
> error message. But after this happens once or twice, he'll catch on
> pretty quickly and develop the habit of hitting delete to
> immediately erase the error message. He has to build a new habit,
> but it's pretty obvious what the new habit should be, he doesn't
> have to unlearn anything.
>
> Compare that to this problem I ran into when starting out in VW. I
> apparently have the habit of doing the following sequence of actions
> when editing text:
>
> - select some text
> - cut
> - select some other text
> - delete
> - type something
> - paste
>
> Everywhere but VW, that leads to the text I cut being inserted back
> into the document. In VW, I get the text that I *deleted.* The text
> I wanted to move is gone, and the text I wanted to get rid of is
> preserved. Argh!
>
> The habits I've developed from working with computers *since I was a
> kid* work against me. It took me weeks to figure out exactly what
> was going wrong, and then another week or two until I stumbled
> across the NoCutDelete package. Even after I knew that I had to
> avoid deleting a selection, I couldn't do it - the habits were too
> deeply engrained.
>
> And the VW behavior is just silly - why have two separate editing
> operations that are exactly the same? Why is there no way to delete
> text without destroying the clipboard? Even if you ignore the
> conventions that the rest of the world uses, this is bad design for
> a text editor.

WHAT are you talking about?!?!?! It works the way it ought to! Fire up
VIM and tadah! Same behavior as VW. Yeesh. Why would we *ever* deviate
from the way the One True Editor (tm) works?

:)

Just kidding. Just in case anyone doesn't get it, I'm agreeing with
Colin, just trying to throw in a little humor here and there.

--
Travis Griggs
Objologist
"There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is
striking at the root" - Henry David Thoreau

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Cesar Rabak

Re: [vwnc] Developers from other languages trying Smalltalk

In reply to this post by davidbuck

David Buck escreveu:
[snipped]

>
> As for editors, the Smalltalk editor itself could be much improved. You
> should be able to bind keys to operations and have pre-built bindings
> for emacs-style or vi-style editors. Why can't we have an easy "move
> backward by one word" key?

What do the key combination Ctrl-<left arrow> does in your VW browser?

> Would it be so hard to support keyboard
> macros? The argument is often made that Smalltalk code doesn't need it,
> but I don't but it. There are many times when I could use a better
editor.

For exactly which purpose in 'smalltalking'?

[snipped]

--
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GNU/Linux User 52247.
Get counted: http://counter.li.org/
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