1988 MS QuickHelp ( in what was THEN called QuickHelp ) allowed user annotations in the Help  ;-)    QuickBasic / Quick C with Assembler  

Borland C++ for OS/2 still remains my fave enviro as I could use it for compiling Large DOS programs to be called by Prolog  ( I was PROLOG before Smalltalk ;-)

I will try to remember to post offending snippets if I hit any more of them as I go about with my "Be-A-Neophyte" in the bowels hat/chapeau on my haid ... with a phare on my casque as all good speliologists do it ... ;-) 

On 19 March 2013 11:33, Sven Van Caekenberghe <sven@stfx.eu> wrote:

Robert,

On 19 Mar 2013, at 13:10, Robert Shiplett <grshiplett@gmail.com> wrote:

> Could you or someone on team look at the code in "examples" of Step 3 of the Announcements "book" in the HelpBrowser ?
>
> This has caused emerg in linux x86 on an Atom netbook and Win7 64-bit HoPr Sp1 on an i7 with the 2.0 release ... not the intended result ...
>
> I have the silly idea that in a "base" release of a 2.0 St that any neophyte should be able to trust code 1) to be an exemplar of St best practices 2) not to cause newbie panic [ I well remember my first couple of days with Smalltalk/PM on OS/2 1.3 ( ? surely not OS/2 2.0 ) after being so pleased with MS QuickHelp for MS DOS "Quick C with Assembler" ;-)  ]  ( to loop from '87 Zenith Eazy PC 512k to 2009 Asus EeePC 900A ;-)

Smalltalk is one of the ultimate malleable systems: you can literally change everything, including the whole infrastructure the system is built on. So yes, you can shoot yourself in the foot.

On the other hand, I agree that Pharo should be as stable as possible: the VM should not crash and a proper exception and debugger should always pop up. [ But again, the debugger and exception system are implemented in Smalltalk and you can change/break them ].

Maybe you could provide the actual code snippet ?

Sven

--
Sven Van Caekenberghe
http://stfx.eu
Smalltalk is the Red Pill