@kilon.alios
[1]
I like C++/CLI more than C# because it is very refreshing to use a
language capable of using managed memory and unmanaged memory.
I am too used to being in languages where garbage collection is
forced on you and everything must be done via new or stack types
such as Java, most scripting languages;
Or using languages where static-types are forced on you and
heavily encouraged over dynamic types.
I feel very "free" when I write C++CLI, as it can do everything
C# can(although many things are admitably harder), but it can also
call C when it feels like it.
[2]
If you want to get more users, I hope you are checking the things
people are saying about Smalltalk.
In my class last week, the general concensus was that
"Smalltalk is dead, why are we studying this useless language".
Personally, I really enjoy the environment, but I feel that the
environment would do better from giving existing users a reason
to tell their friends about Pharo, and to like the language.
There are many things that relate to this
1. Reasons to be excited about Pharo/Smalltalk
- It is a system where you can modify the system within the system.
- It has a very simple syntax, which is capable of doing things as
powerful as JavaScript.
- It is easy to get on Windows(3 minute download self contained)...
- It has pretty powerful prototyping means, but it's not quite as
powerful as
it could be. One way to improve this would be to add a morph editor
similar to
VB6. Morphs are somewhat scary to new users right now, and I feel they
stand a bit
further than where AWT/Swing is in terms of difficulty getting
started, even
if it is not necessarily true.
2. Quality of Life
- Blocks the GUI thread in strange scenarios: It's really aggrevating
when
it does this; when you type in code, the GUI should not freeze!
- Make it a bit easier to remove morphs(Pit of least astonishment, shift
alt click
is not obvious, and morph that consists of many morphs is somewhat
hard to select
the parent morph, so you have to delete the child morph then shift alt
click the
same place to select the underlying morph(eg grids).
- More themes!
- I know you're going to hate me for this but... It's a bit annoying to
install
Pharo on 64-bit Linux right now...
- It is kind-of hard to understand what .image, .changes, and .sources
are and
the material online isn't very exhaustive on their responsibilities.
To date I
am not actually sure what purpose .sources serves.
- It's too easy to put Pharo into inconsistant state where it harasses
you with
popups. It should be easier to access the "undo whatever I just did
please", whether
it is editing of code, or running a code, I am not sure how easy this
is but at the
moment, it's not as up-front as it could be; It's scary when you do
something and
your environment starts yelling at you. (Maybe we could use some
Toasts instead of
Popups?).
- Is there a Pharo alternative to JavaScript timeouts?
That is all I could think of for now, probably not going to help you much
but I wanted
to give my 1/1000 of a cent.
--
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Sent from the Pharo Smalltalk Users mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
