Hi,

On 04 Oct 2015, at 23:53, Peter Uhnák <i.uhnak@gmail.com> wrote:

This is both rant and list of questions/notes/observations...

...but first of all: do Smalltalkers not like code completion? Because the one in Pharo is really poor and not only that nobody is doing anything about it, but also nobody is complaining; this leads me to believe that you either

a) don't have the manpower (this is true pretty much always, so no complaints here) b) don't care about this that much (since you lived without it for 45 years)

at least from the lack of complaining to me it seems that b) is more likely scenario...

It’s a). And improvements don’t come from complaints, they come from suggestions, and even more often from contributions. I’ve already asked bout something, but there is no one who has tome to work with code completion.

But since I do use it, I get annoyed by it quite a bit, especially since I regularly work in IDEs where this thousand times better.

Now I would like to get things moving a bit (or bury it and forget it), so I have couple of questions and would appreciate if someone could provide some feedback.

1. Methods of core/top classes should be reprioritized

I am not sure that code completion is based on a real methods that know their class, I think that it’s model is rather a simple set of symbols. Maybe I’m wrong, but if it is the case, it impacts many of the following issues.

Since Object has almost 500 methods whatever I will start typing Object/TClass/TBehavior/... will have a list of answers...

so let's start typing...

<2015-10-04_23:02:50.png>

<2015-10-04_23:03:14.png>

<2015-10-04_23:03:25.png>

Very often I have to type almost full word to see what I want. Shouldn't the completion follow the inheritance chain? So first it shows me matches from the class itself (especially since it actually knows the type) and only after then it's parents and so on?

3. Or maybe even show the (closest) class that implements it. So the last two items would have somewhere (beginning or the end) written '(Object)' and the first two '(yourself)' (or the class's name).

2. The window has fixed size, so if I have longer method (as in picture above) I don't see it all.

3. Is middle-of-the word really that often used? See moseIntere<sti>ngEntity above. It feels to me that it just creates a lot of false positives (I have this problem also with inspector btw, so I often have to prefix it with >># or if I see it already lot of <arrow down>, which is annoying)

I actually find it useful sometimes, but also it does not help me much because it’s case sensitive. Also considering the fact that you can easily use Spotter for to lookup, maybe it makes sense to just ignore middle word suggestions.

<2015-10-04_23:07:47.png>

4. We write tests, however how often have you manually created an instance of a test class by hand? I think they should be either filtered or deprioritized as they create visual clutter. This is probably also true for many other classes such as ConfigurationOf/Manifest/... Nobody instantiates them by hand.

You are right. It will be interesting to have some kind of model for that. Because you don’t want to do this for every framework by hand, right? I.e. if I throw away SUnit and start to use something else, I would like to have to same features.

<2015-10-04_23:09:36.png> 5. How often do you send #abs to a dictionary? Maybe also deprioritize extension methods?

Tough to generalize. If I extend something then I definitely use it quite often. Maybe having a “project that you work on” can help in prioritization.

<2015-10-04_23:10:15.png> 6. If I have already written part of the selector it's impossible to "continue" and add an extra parameter. This is because it doesn't know if I am code completing for dict, or #key. Maybe different shortcuts? <tab> to code complete on #key, and <shift+tab> to code complete on the previous one... or maybe cycle through them because this can be nested (the currently code completed item would have to be highlighted somehow).

I think that there are many limitations because you are editing a text and not ast. Would be nice to have a placeholders like in xCode that allow you to enter parameters one by one after you’ve autocompleted multi-parameter message. But again, for now we are only on text level.

<2015-10-04_23:10:23.png> 7. So if I don't want to see the above I have to type it manually; which is fine for #at:put: but not for longer words.. (just to find out ten seconds later that I have a stupid typo there).

8. The code completion doesn't show parameter names. This is very helpful because it often reveals what it actually accepts. Now I have to actually look into the code of the method.

Again, probably it’s just a symbol, not a method. On the other hand, what should you do if you have multiple implementors. It probably would be useful to have suggestion when method is already there, and you are typing in parameters. Anyway, if you can contribute any improvement, personaly I’d be grateful. Cheers. Uko

Now we can hardly compete with typed languages, but I think there's a lot lot room for improvement.

For comparison from other languages/IDE's.

PhpStorm/PHP <2015-10-04_22:53:38.png> (notice how it shows the whole method if it's longer than the window and doesn't it just clip)​

NetBeans/C++

<2015-10-04_23:01:09.png>

<2015-10-04_23:01:50.png> In the picture above it ​still provides hinting when typing the parameter.

TypeScript playground <2015-10-04_23:12:12.png> <2015-10-04_23:12:31.png> ​(similar to NetBeans)

Also they have in their online playground better and nicer code completion than we have in actual env (http://www.typescriptlang.org/Playground <http://www.typescriptlang.org/Playground> )

So if you have any thoughts/feedback/whatnot on this matter, I would greatly appreciate it.

Peter

do Smalltalkers not like code completion? Because the one in Pharo is really poor and not only that nobody is doing anything about it, but also nobody is complaining

Agree, and this can be improved significantly. I see a lots of potential doing precise code completion in the debugger/inspector/workspace based on the runtime information available. http://forum.world.st/Customised-auto-completion-to-give-priority-to-specifi... Once I started digging into NECCompletion (or something like this) but its inner behavior wasn't that trivial to me. -- View this message in context: http://forum.world.st/Better-Code-Completion-tp4853548p4853703.html Sent from the Pharo Smalltalk Developers mailing list archive at Nabble.com.

Am 04.10.2015 23:53 schrieb "Peter Uhnák" <i.uhnak@gmail.com>:

This is both rant and list of questions/notes/observations...

...but first of all: do Smalltalkers not like code completion? Because the one in Pharo is

really poor and not only that nobody is doing anything about it, but also nobody is complaining; this leads me to believe that you either

a) don't have the manpower (this is true pretty much always, so no

complaints here)

b) don't care about this that much (since you lived without it for 45 years)

at least from the lack of complaining to me it seems that b) is more likely scenario...

But since I do use it, I get annoyed by it quite a bit, especially since I regularly work in IDEs where this thousand times better.

Can you Name one, for a dynamic OO - language? (Maybe we can borrow some ideas).

Now I would like to get things moving a bit (or bury it and forget it),

so I have couple of questions and would appreciate if someone could provide some feedback.

1. Methods of core/top classes should be deprioritized

Since Object has almost 500 methods whatever I will start typing

Object/TClass/TBehavior/... will have a list of answers... I think this is difficult, even though this classes are big and you don't use most of the methods, are you sure we dont use some of the methods *often*. Morphic, ComposeableModel or many collection classes, for example.

so let's start typing...

Very often I have to type almost full word to see what I want.

This is doesn't happen often to me. It is far from perfect but most of the time I only type a small part and find the correct completion.

Shouldn't the completion follow the inheritance chain? So first it shows me matches from the class itself (especially since it actually knows the type) and only after then it's parents and so on?

Currently, it only collects all selectors into a set and sorts by matching and length. We could add the class info and sort by inheritance distance. This needs some change how sorting is implemented, for now,it is typeless and may need some double dispatching.

3. Or maybe even show the (closest) class that implements it. So the last two items would have somewhere (beginning or the end) written

'(Object)' and the first two '(yourself)' (or the class's name). This needs some additional work too, now the menu text is the actual completion content. But it shouldn't be that difficult and some code looks like it was intended to work that way.

2. The window has fixed size, so if I have longer method (as in picture

above) I don't see it all.

3. Is middle-of-the word really that often used? See

moseIntere<sti>ngEntity above. It feels to me that it just creates a lot of false positives (I have this problem also with inspector btw, so I often have to prefix it with >># or if I see it already lot of <arrow down>, which is annoying) I often search for "Dictionary" or "Morph" and expect results even if the typed word is not at the beginning, quite often.

4. We write tests, however how often have you manually created an

instance of a test class by hand? I think they should be either filtered or deprioritized as they create visual clutter. This is probably also true for many other classes such as ConfigurationOf/Manifest/... Nobody instantiates them by hand. Be careful will statements like "nobody ...." I do a lot of reviews for pharo issues, and this involves working in workspace and instantiating classes (Yes, Tests, Refactoring, LintRules) most people don't use them this way but by the tools (SUnit, CriticBrowser) But I do.

5. How often do you send #abs to a dictionary?

seldom, never? but how could a completion framework detect that?

6. If I have already written part of the selector it's impossible to

"continue" and add an extra parameter. This is because it doesn't know if I am code completing for dict, or #key.

Maybe different shortcuts? <tab> to code complete on #key, and <shift+tab> to code complete on the previous one...

good idea! (did you know, that there is a shortcut to jump from one message send argument to another (not related to completion, but very helpful). Sadly this is gone or I couldn't find it in rubrics shortcut handling).

or maybe cycle through them because this can be nested (the currently code completed item would have to be highlighted somehow).

7. So if I don't want to see the above I have to type it manually; which is fine for #at:put: but not for longer words.. (just to find out ten seconds later that I have a stupid typo there).

8. The code completion doesn't show parameter names. This is very helpful because it often reveals what it actually accepts. Now I have to actually look into the code of the method.

Yes, I tried to change that for issue "10219 <https://pharo.fogbugz.com/f/cases/10219/Completion-enter-on-accept-awkwardne...> Completion: enter on accept awkwardness", but again, the completion only knows about the methodDict keys, the selector, not the mehod code. But I would like to change that and test if it is much slow.

Now we can hardly compete with typed languages, but I think there's a lot

lot room for improvement.

For comparison from other languages/IDE's.

PhpStorm/PHP

(notice how it shows the whole method if it's longer than the window and

doesn't it just clip)​

NetBeans/C++

In the picture above it ​still provides hinting when typing the parameter.

TypeScript playground

​(similar to NetBeans)

Also they have in their online playground better and nicer code

completion than we have in actual env ( http://www.typescriptlang.org/Playground )

So if you have any thoughts/feedback/whatnot on this matter, I would

greatly appreciate it.

Peter