[Pharo-project] The Keys to the Kingdom
This incredible piece of feedback was hiding at http://code.google.com/p/pharo/wiki/HowToContribute . We should all have this pinned to the wall behind our computer: Sometimes I make some "exercise" on Smalltalk/Squeak for the fun, sometimes I try to build tools in Squeak to solve some practical problem or personal need. I'm not a programmer, just a curious guy, completely ignorant about programming, who, some years ago, found Smalltalk/Squeak to be the only human programming language I could cope with. But every time I try to do something with Squeak I stumble on this inevitable conclusion: it is one of the most entropic things I ever met in my life. The reason for this may lay partly on structural reasons - I wouldn't know, because I'm an ignorant, as I stated before. But there is a second reason I know for sure: the owners' and contributors' inability to step out of the developer's perspective, to put a distance towards themselves (and towards the result of their work). As a result, Squeak is probably the worst documented language in the world. Documentation and comments on the code are completely entropic, self-centered, tautological; it is experts talking to all-knowing experts - like those stupid old-fashioned dictionaries where every word definition tends to be built with the defined word. Until now I had a look to Pharo system browser only for a few minutes, but that was enough for me to get the impression that you are trying to get over this dreadful limitation, to jump over the limits of an strictly enclosed community, rehearsing new tentative styles to comment code and classes. If I got it right and this is true, congratulations and thank you very much for your effort. -- View this message in context: http://forum.world.st/The-Keys-to-the-Kingdom-tp3780556p3780556.html Sent from the Pharo Smalltalk mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
exactly !! before Pharo Squeak was a nightmare for me and I'm grateful to the Pharo contributors Am 31.08.2011 um 11:14 schrieb Sean P. DeNigris:
This incredible piece of feedback was hiding at http://code.google.com/p/pharo/wiki/HowToContribute . We should all have this pinned to the wall behind our computer:
Sometimes I make some "exercise" on Smalltalk/Squeak for the fun, sometimes I try to build tools in Squeak to solve some practical problem or personal need. I'm not a programmer, just a curious guy, completely ignorant about programming, who, some years ago, found Smalltalk/Squeak to be the only human programming language I could cope with. But every time I try to do something with Squeak I stumble on this inevitable conclusion: it is one of the most entropic things I ever met in my life. The reason for this may lay partly on structural reasons - I wouldn't know, because I'm an ignorant, as I stated before. But there is a second reason I know for sure: the owners' and contributors' inability to step out of the developer's perspective, to put a distance towards themselves (and towards the result of their work). As a result, Squeak is probably the worst documented language in the world. Documentation and comments on the code are completely entropic, self-centered, tautological; it is experts talking to all-knowing experts - like those stupid old-fashioned dictionaries where every word definition tends to be built with the defined word. Until now I had a look to Pharo system browser only for a few minutes, but that was enough for me to get the impression that you are trying to get over this dreadful limitation, to jump over the limits of an strictly enclosed community, rehearsing new tentative styles to comment code and classes. If I got it right and this is true, congratulations and thank you very much for your effort.
-- View this message in context: http://forum.world.st/The-Keys-to-the-Kingdom-tp3780556p3780556.html Sent from the Pharo Smalltalk mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
IMHO, the biggest room for improvement is with Tests. What I loved about BDD coming from Ruby is that it forces you to write tests from the perspective of a user of the API. Often in Squeak/Pharo, I go to the tests and still have no idea how to use the classes because the tests focus on implementation details. -- View this message in context: http://forum.world.st/The-Keys-to-the-Kingdom-tp3780556p3780712.html Sent from the Pharo Smalltalk mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
Sean here is my idea (check the archive) We write tests and some of them we tag them <public api> or <help> and they should appear as that in the help of the package This way the programmer can even write comments in the test "I do that because this is like that and this has this effect" I tried to comment SOUP that way. Stef On Aug 31, 2011, at 1:22 PM, Sean P. DeNigris wrote:
IMHO, the biggest room for improvement is with Tests. What I loved about BDD coming from Ruby is that it forces you to write tests from the perspective of a user of the API. Often in Squeak/Pharo, I go to the tests and still have no idea how to use the classes because the tests focus on implementation details.
-- View this message in context: http://forum.world.st/The-Keys-to-the-Kingdom-tp3780556p3780712.html Sent from the Pharo Smalltalk mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
"Pure" TDD (or, BDD as it's reincarnation) makes tests a documentation automatically. Unfortunately, it's not easy to find TDD examples in Smalltalk (nearly all, not just Pharo) code. Not to say, this approach would resolve a lot of other problems, if adopted just a bit wider⦠Just complaining :) 2011/8/31 Sean P. DeNigris <sean@clipperadams.com>
IMHO, the biggest room for improvement is with Tests. What I loved about BDD coming from Ruby is that it forces you to write tests from the perspective of a user of the API. Often in Squeak/Pharo, I go to the tests and still have no idea how to use the classes because the tests focus on implementation details.
-- View this message in context: http://forum.world.st/The-Keys-to-the-Kingdom-tp3780556p3780712.html Sent from the Pharo Smalltalk mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
-- Dennis Schetinin
participants (4)
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Dennis Schetinin -
Johannes Rasche -
Sean P. DeNigris -
Stéphane Ducasse