Re: [Pharo-users] [Pharo-dev] happy and bold new year
Hi Hilaire, GT is essentially a project that takes the relevant parts of Moose and make them applicable to plain Pharo. Pharo ships with only the core tools, but the complete configuration of GT also brings with it Roassal and a couple of other goodies. There are still more interesting things in Moose, but you can get quite far with only GT. About your particular question, itâs true that Pharo does not have static types, but that does not make it harder to understand. Only different. The first thing to realize is that Pharo is not about code, but about objects. That is why my advice is to not try too long to understand Pharo code statically because this is not where the power of Pharo is. You are in a much better position to understand a system when itâs running. So, the tools that I use the most are the inspector when I need to understand structural relationships or contracts between objects, and the debugger when I need to understand some algorithmic steps. Even when I look for code structure patterns, I mostly use the inspector because it allows me to query. Then you augment these tools with custom views and you get quite far. I know this sounds abstract, but I am practicing this since several years and I still find it amazing. I tried to provide a hint of how it works in the ESUG 2016 talk. Cheers, Doru
On Jan 9, 2017, at 2:02 PM, Hilaire <hilaire@drgeo.eu> wrote:
Hello Doru,
I am curious. Yesterday I had a look to MessageBrowser, and realize I understand nothing of it. I saw there is a mix of SpecXXX, models, Navigation browser, Announcement, etc, then I knew I will have to spend a lot of time browsing (multiple window again) to understand a bit how these objects are related, and may be be able to change it in the way I want. Does the Moose & al tools could help me understand code I don't know about?
Given the fact Pharo/Smalltalk are not typed makes it harder for code analysis, don't you?
Happy new year to you too.
Hiaire
Le 09/01/2017 à 10:30, Tudor Girba a écrit :
Happy New Year, everyone!
Over the last year, I went through a rather extensive tour and I directly exposed Moose, GT and Pharo to some 2000+ technical people through various sessions and trainings at conferences and companies. The tour will continue this year.
Most of the sessions are not directly about Moose, GT or Pharo, but about broader topics that are served through what we do around here. These topics can relate to solving problems without reading code, to steering agile architecture, or more recently, to even broader topics like software environmentalism. If you are wondering what software environmentalism is, please take a look at this talk: https://youtu.be/N3l3eB62oSw?list=PLqvTNJtc942Cs9Qo4ikCGrUNtAw93Q0JA
I now have the confirmation that there is a whole space which is unaddressed by mainstream technologies. Often people find themselves frustrated having to build their systems on top of opaque technologies with not much hope of understanding what is going on under the hood both because they do not have access to what is behind and because they are provided lack the tools to investigate. You see, developers are suppose to have the coolest job on the planet, and many of them are unhappy. This has to change, and we can do that.
In a conversation I had with a highly respected researcher, after explaining how our tools allow us to work, he noted reluctantly âso, you are claiming that you are practicing a fundamentally different software engineering?â. This question took me a little by surprise because the only answer I found myself being able to provide was âyesâ. I sent him this talk: https://youtu.be/XWOOJa3kEa0?list=PLqvTNJtc942Cs9Qo4ikCGrUNtAw93Q0JA
It is strange to be in the position to tell the world that we are constructing something fundamentally better, but I really do believe that we are.
I wish you a happy and bold new year!
Cheers, Doru
-- Dr. Geo http://drgeo.eu
-- www.tudorgirba.com www.feenk.com "If you can't say why something is relevant, it probably isn't."
I know this path of understanding code while it is running (inspector or debugger), but it is still a tedious path, and I feel Pharo is a bit under featured on that specific department, therefore my question on Moose. Hilaire Le 09/01/2017 à 15:09, Tudor Girba a écrit :
That is why my advice is to not try too long to understand Pharo code statically because this is not where the power of Pharo is. You are in a much better position to understand a system when itâs running. So, the tools that I use the most are the inspector when I need to understand structural relationships or contracts between objects, and the debugger when I need to understand some algorithmic steps. Even when I look for code structure patterns, I mostly use the inspector because it allows me to query. Then you augment these tools with custom views and you get quite far.
-- Dr. Geo http://drgeo.eu
Hi, In my opinion, Pharo provides the strongest infrastructure for understanding a system from all technologies I have seen. So, if you say that Pharo is a bit "under featured in, then I think we are not referring to the same thing :). May I ask how you are using the inspector? For example: - do you extend the inspector? - do you construct visualizations about your system in the inspector? - do you write queries about code in the inspector? Cheers, Doru
On Jan 9, 2017, at 3:42 PM, Hilaire <hilaire@drgeo.eu> wrote:
I know this path of understanding code while it is running (inspector or debugger), but it is still a tedious path, and I feel Pharo is a bit under featured on that specific department, therefore my question on Moose.
Hilaire
Le 09/01/2017 à 15:09, Tudor Girba a écrit :
That is why my advice is to not try too long to understand Pharo code statically because this is not where the power of Pharo is. You are in a much better position to understand a system when itâs running. So, the tools that I use the most are the inspector when I need to understand structural relationships or contracts between objects, and the debugger when I need to understand some algorithmic steps. Even when I look for code structure patterns, I mostly use the inspector because it allows me to query. Then you augment these tools with custom views and you get quite far.
-- Dr. Geo http://drgeo.eu
-- www.tudorgirba.com www.feenk.com "We can create beautiful models in a vacuum. But, to get them effective we have to deal with the inconvenience of reality."
Le 09/01/2017 à 16:09, Tudor Girba a écrit :
Hi,
In my opinion, Pharo provides the strongest infrastructure for understanding a system from all technologies I have seen. So, if you say that Pharo is a bit "under featured in, then I think we are not referring to the same thing :).
We are refering to the same things. I express a feeling from a user experience. After diving in the code with several inspector windows, you get lost quickly. I use the inspector to discover the class of the attributes, and write code snippet. Inspector most of the time invoked from the Debugger I don't know about visualization from inspector or queries about code. Are there discoverable features? But we are far from my initial question. I will be happy to watch a video demonstration about what I don't know in Pharo to understand more easily the MessageBrowser, for example. Final goal will be to change MessageBrwoser so asking for implementors does not open a new window but use its existing window.
May I ask how you are using the inspector? For example: - do you extend the inspector? - do you construct visualizations about your system in the inspector? - do you write queries about code in the inspector?
Cheers, Doru
-- Dr. Geo http://drgeo.eu
I should add I am stick with Pharo3 for DrGeo, however the new inspector in Pharo 4 and 5 reduces a lot the cascade of inspector windows, thanks to its horizontal slider. Le 09/01/2017 à 16:37, Hilaire a écrit :
We are refering to the same things. I express a feeling from a user experience. After diving in the code with several inspector windows, you get lost quickly.
-- Dr. Geo http://drgeo.eu
2017-01-09 16:37 GMT+01:00 Hilaire <hilaire@drgeo.eu>:
But we are far from my initial question. I will be happy to watch a video demonstration about what I don't know in Pharo to understand more easily the MessageBrowser, for example. Final goal will be to change MessageBrwoser so asking for implementors does not open a new window but use its existing window.
I am going to show something really cool tomorrow :)
Great! IMHO there is a lot to learn from newbies or naive users experience to improve the Pharo IDE tools. The Calypso multiple tab panels of edited methods is nice. By the way, when asking for the reference of a Trait it always returns an empty list, but I guess you already know it. Le 09/01/2017 à 21:31, Denis Kudriashov a écrit :
I am going to show something really cool tomorrow :)
-- Dr. Geo http://drgeo.eu
participants (3)
-
Denis Kudriashov -
Hilaire -
Tudor Girba