Hi Torsten,

I think it is a design decision / tradeoff, and therefore there is no 
fundamentally "right way" to do it. For me, it is the same case as the uses: 
message for Traits. It's not in the template by default because it is used very 
infrequently. So for language simplicity it should not be there. For me, 
simplicity is one of the core points of Smalltalk so this is why I feel 
strongly about it.

When I say "very infrequently", this is of course a fuzzy metric, I know. And I 
understand that you do not agree with this design decision.

But on the other hand, I don't think that it is too hard to remember where to 
add the pooldictionaries: line if you need it, and the old message with this 
line still works, so all old examples still work. 

The fix I proposed was integrated today, so everything should work now. If 
there still is a problem I will provide a fix as soon as I get notified of the 
issue (as I did yesterday). My apologies to all for the mess, I promise I won't 
cause such a mess again in the future.

On Jan 31, 2014, at 9:54 AM, "Torsten Bergmann" <[email protected]> wrote:

> Hi Johan,
> 
> Still I really do not understand what particular problem that is solved by 
> changing
> the template from
> 
>   MySuperclass subclass: #Foo 
>     instanceVariableNames: '' 
>     classVariableNames: '' 
>     poolDictionaries: '' 
>     category: 'Bar-Core' 
> 
> to 
> 
>   MySuperclass subclass: #Foo 
>     instanceVariableNames: '' 
>     classVariableNames: '' 
>     category: 'Bar-Core' 
> 
> other than some of your student had problem not yet knowning what pool 
> dictionaries are
> and you want to hide pools therefore. A weak argument since some students may 
> not yet 
> know about class variables - so why not hiding them in the first place too? 
> 
> Another teacher may argue that his students got problems because the template 
> was changed 
> and nearly all ST, Seaside and Pharo books used for teaching include the 
> extended variant 
> of the message.
> 
> IMHO a class template is (as the name says) a "template" and a template 
> should be 
> something one just has to fill out. The idea of a template is to avoid too 
> much typing afterwards.
> So the idea is one just should fill out the template without much hazzle. 
> If I require an ivar, a class variable, a pool or a category I just put it in.
> 
> By now reducing the template people who require pools have to do more typing 
> and 
> they have to remember the order of words in the keyword message... 
> 
> I stand at my point I think there is not much real value in this change of 
> the default 
> template, but are fine if community agrees on the reduced version. 
> 
> Thanks
> T.
> 
> 



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Johan Fabry   -   http://pleiad.cl/~jfabry
PLEIAD lab  -  Computer Science Department (DCC)  -  University of Chile


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