What’s in a Smalltalk Browser anyway? Part 1

Now that I’ve started thinking about Browsers and possible Improvements in VA Smalltalk, there are several related topics I’ve already posted about and thought about over the last few months.

That’s all, folks. Looking at different Browsers in VA Smalltalk (and also in VisualWorks) , I come to the conclusion that most of them have three of these four tasks in common, while one of them differs between the Browsers. The one that’s different between the Browsers is the Navigation task. Whether you open a Classes Broser, a Class Browser or a Hierarchy Browser, the difference lies mainly in the fact that the Navigation component is different. Of course the Browsers have had their own life cycle over the years and may have some differences in their menus etc., but this is not a necessity, it’s just historical.

So most Browsers are completely exchangeable and equivalent in functionality – the only difference lies in the way we’ve found our way to the Class. The only difference lies in the navigation to the Class.

Let’s draw a little parallel to Web Browsers. They have a lot in common with Smalltalk Browsers:

Part of my reasoning is related to the question if there is a way to make Smalltalk development better understandable/accessible for developers whow are new to Smalltalk. One of their bigger problems is the fact that you tend to open a few dozen windows in a very short  period of time and things can get quite messy on your screen. So sometimes I think that maybe it would be good if we could adopt some of the ideas in eclipse’s GUI concept in Smalltalk IDEs. This brings us to some interesting questions:

• What do Java programming and Smalltalk programming have in common, or where are the differences between the two?
• Could a Smalltalk IDE work similar to Eclipse and still provide the same productivity?
• What are the  typical tasks to perform in a Smalltalk Browser?

The last question is probably most important to understand where I’m headed. So let’s look at what you can do in a typical Smalltalk code Browser:

• Navigate to a Class: The main task of a Browser is to let you edit a Class’ source code. So the very first task is to find a Class. There are several ways to navigate to a Class:
  • By digging into the inheritance tree of the Smalltalk Class Library
  • By navigating through the Application or Package Structure
  • By performing a search in the Smalltalk image
    • Senders or implementers of a method
    • References to names/symbols
    • Inclusion of a certain String
    • Looking at a Category
    • Whatever I currently do not think of 😉
  • Looking into connected Source code control systems like Envy, StORE,Monticello or whatever, most of the times this is a subset of the other options, but targeted not at the image but the connected repository. In VAST, these are the so called Shadow and Editions Browsers. I won’t go into too much detail about these ones in this post
• Navigate within the Class: Once you’re done navigating to a Class you need to find the public or private class or instance method you want to read or edit. There are several ways of navigating within a class:
  • By selecting a Method Category (or several of them)
  • By navigating to the class or instance side
  • By filtering for public/private or all (if your Smalltalk even knows this difference)
• Edit source code: When you’ve found your method, you can read or edit it. In addition to method source you probably want to edit the class’ definition or class comment or whatever additional things there may be that can be edited. In VA Smalltalk, there are two sepcial cases of editing code of a Class: the Composition Editor for visual programming and GUI design and the Public interface editor. The same applies for the GUI painters in other Smalltalk IDEs: they are just another view at the source code.
• Navigate somewhere else: While reading or editing code (or comments, or the class definition), you may stumble upon a message send or reference to a Class or a name that you’d like to look at in more detail. As an example, you read a message send of #printOn:, and would like to look at the implementation method. You’re navigating somewhere else.

Ignoring the fact that there are surely a few more tasks to perform in a Browser like exporting code, loading other versions of artefacts from a repository or printing code and the like, the list above pretty much includes all you can do in a Browser:

• Navigate to a Class
• Navigate within a Class
• Edit source code (or comments) of the Class
• Navigate to somewhere else

That’s all, folks. Looking at different Browsers in VA Smalltalk (and also in VisualWorks) , I come to the conclusion that most of them have three of these four tasks in common, while one of them differs between the Browsers. The one that’s different between the Browsers is the Navigation task. Whether you open a Classes Broser, a Class Browser or a Hierarchy Browser, the difference lies mainly in the fact that the Navigation component is different. Of course the Browsers have had their own life cycle over the years and may have some differences in their menus etc., but this is not a necessity, it’s just historical.