just for the record, I am no old timer Smalltalker, I come from python just introduced the past year to pharo. I dont pay attention to the poolDictionaries , I have seen it used as concept by NBOpenGL , looks like a fan idea, it does not distract me from my coding, I am glad its there because one day I may need it. So for now I just ignore it and I see no side effect.
One thing to make clear here is that its normal not to use or need stuff from a language. As I said I come from python , python comes with enormous standard library with tons of features, If you install cpython which is the most popular python implementation (by far) you install also its standard library. Its unrealistic to expect the average python coder to use more than 10% from that and 10% maybe be even optimistic. The tricky part is that each coder uses a different 10% . There is no such thing as a majority, a majority is a collection of minorities that are in some form of agreement. Each coder has different goals and different ways of coding. But thats is what it makes a language great, when a specific problem arises the language will provide an easy solution however exotic / rare the problem is, it wont reply to you "wait that thing you ask is kinda rare, so I dont care" because you wont care about the language as well. Someone could bring forth the argument that these things should go to third party libraries , but again there is a problem here. How you inform the users about these libraries ? How you guarantee that these libraries will keep being maintaine ?. So its no concidence that python comes with an enormous standard library and there are many coders that code in python and never use any third library and they love python or be precise cpython for that. Java is a similar story too. So I think the question "who uses poolDictionaries " is one those mirage questions that from far make perfect sense but the closer you come to the problem they make less and less sense . Of course about having a message that containes no poolDictionaries as argument, its makes perfect sense. Things should always be as simple as possible, but not more simple. Making a nice gui has little to do with the API itself. You dont want your API to depend on the GUI , you want the GUI to depend on the API. The API should make the life easy, the GUI should make the lifer easier. On Thu, Nov 14, 2013 at 1:14 PM, Stéphane Ducasse <stephane.duca...@inria.fr > wrote: > > On Nov 14, 2013, at 11:21 AM, Yuriy Tymchuk <yuriy.tymc...@me.com> wrote: > > > > > On 14 Nov 2013, at 11:10, jtuc...@objektfabrik.de wrote: > > > >> Yuri, > >> > >> Okay, so why not go one step further and kill PoolDictionaries? > >> I mean, if no one uses them and you'd like to hide them from the users, > they obviously are unnecessary. That would be a real cleanup, right? > > > > Yes it would, the thing is that I had no idea what they do. And other > guys from my team had no idea. And as far as I know a lot of people are not > aware of them. So for me it’s ok to hide PoolDictionaries. Maybe in future > they will become obsolete because of the features that Slots can provide. > Maybe they will come back to life. > > > Yuriy have a look at Pharo by example. They should be explain. > PoolDictionaries (as in Pharo) refers to special classes holding > classvariables so that these variables can be statically shared (know at > compiled time) between different hierarchies. For example Cr is directly > used instead of having to type Text cr everywhere. > > > As for me, the class creation is wrong. We are not creating a method > like: > > Object compile: > > 'class > > "Primitive. Answer the object which is the receiver''s class. > Essential. See > > Object documentation whatIsAPrimitive." > > > > <primitive: 111> > > self primitiveFailed’ > > > > classified: #'class membership' > > > > we just type a method. > > > > I’d like something user friendly for cass like: > > - select a superclass > > - give your class a name > > - add instance variable > > * name variable > > * choose variable type > > - add class variable… > > - add pool dictionary > > > > I think that you get the idea > > > >> > >> PoolDictionaries are potentially dangerous, because you can put things > there that make Images harder to reproduce if you don't put the code to > fill the Dictionaries into some script that will be run in the right > situations (places like #loaded in envy). > >> > >> Joachim > >> > >> Am 14.11.13 11:05, schrieb Yuriy Tymchuk: > >>> On 14 Nov 2013, at 11:02, jtuc...@objektfabrik.de wrote: > >>> > >>>> Hi, > >>>> > >>>> I'd like to draw your attention to something else: consistency. > >>>> > >>>> I remember the days when Cincom added Namespaces to classes and the > class definition template changed drastically. It took me quite a while to > get used to that. > >>>> And there is this other aspect in the consistency field: most > Smalltalk literature will include and address that line. If you learn > Smalltalk, such small differences can cause trouble. > >>> Is anything mentioning PoolDictionaries? I have no idea what it is. > >>> > >>> The other thing is that we should go from text for class creation to > nice ui, but it’s a long term goal. > >>> > >>>> And what if I need PoolDictionaries? How hard will it be to find the > place to add my reference to them? > >>>> A fair amount of Pharo code may not make much use of > PoolDictionaries, but other dialects do. I know Pharo has the concept of > "never look back" and it is good to be prepared to cut off old strings. But > there is a price to it. > >>>> > >>>> Seaside, apart from being a great web framework, has achieved > something that was excellent and helped the whole Smalltalk universe make a > leap forward: all Smalltalk dialects moved closer together and honestly > worked on being more compatible. Suggestions like this may not break much > of this per se, but many such cracks make a wide canyon. I find the > argument that a certain line of code may irritate students a bit weak. It > may make their life harder once they read code from other dialects. Should > we remove class browsers because students are used to use text editors? > >>>> > >>>> Just my 2 cents > >>>> > >>>> Joachim > >>>> > >>>> Am 14.11.13 10:49, schrieb Martin Dias: > >>>>> +10 > >>>>> > >>>>> > >>>>> On Tue, Nov 12, 2013 at 9:24 PM, Stéphane Ducasse > >>>>> <stephane.duca...@inria.fr> wrote: > >>>>>> +1 > >>>>>> > >>>>>> On Nov 12, 2013, at 4:39 PM, Johan Fabry <jfa...@dcc.uchile.cl> > wrote: > >>>>>> > >>>>>>> Hi all, > >>>>>>> > >>>>>>> I am preparing slides for a course. I came to the typical: > >>>>>>> > >>>>>>> Number subclass: #Complex > >>>>>>> instanceVariableNames: 'real imaginary' > >>>>>>> classVariableNames: '' > >>>>>>> poolDictionaries: '' > >>>>>>> category: 'ComplexNumbers' > >>>>>>> > >>>>>>> Which made me think: Who uses poolDictionaries? I suspect > extremely few of us. > >>>>>>> > >>>>>>> Why not add this to Class: > >>>>>>> Class>>subclass: aSymbol instanceVariableNames: instVarNames > classVariableNames: classVarNames category: aSymbol > >>>>>>> ^self subclass: aSymbol > >>>>>>> instanceVariableNames: instVarNames > >>>>>>> classVariableNames: classVarNames > >>>>>>> poolDictionaries: '' > >>>>>>> category: aSymbol > >>>>>>> > >>>>>>> And have the new class template as follows? > >>>>>>> > >>>>>>> Object subclass: #NameOfSubclass > >>>>>>> instanceVariableNames: '' > >>>>>>> classVariableNames: '' > >>>>>>> category: 'Kernel-Classes' > >>>>>>> > >>>>>>> It would be a bit cleaner. I know us old timers don't even see the > poolDictionaries: line anymore, but I dislike having to explain it to > students. > >>>>>>> > >>>>>>> Greetings, > >>>>>>> > >>>>>>> ---> Save our in-boxes! http://emailcharter.org <--- > >>>>>>> > >>>>>>> Johan Fabry - http://pleiad.cl/~jfabry > >>>>>>> PLEIAD lab - Computer Science Department (DCC) - University of > Chile > >>>>>>> > >>>>>>> > >>>> > >>>> -- > >>>> > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > >>>> Objektfabrik Joachim Tuchel mailto:jtuc...@objektfabrik.de > >>>> Fliederweg 1 http://www.objektfabrik.de > >>>> D-71640 Ludwigsburg > http://joachimtuchel.wordpress.com > >>>> Telefon: +49 7141 56 10 86 0 Fax: +49 7141 56 10 86 1 > >>>> > >>>> > >>> > >>> > >> > >> > >> -- > >> ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > >> Objektfabrik Joachim Tuchel mailto:jtuc...@objektfabrik.de > >> Fliederweg 1 http://www.objektfabrik.de > >> D-71640 Ludwigsburg http://joachimtuchel.wordpress.com > >> Telefon: +49 7141 56 10 86 0 Fax: +49 7141 56 10 86 1 > >> > >> > > > > > > >
