I agree with you and as a teacher I'm picky on this point :). Stef
On Sun, Jul 23, 2017 at 6:43 PM, Alistair Grant <akgrant0...@gmail.com> wrote: > Hi Tim, > > On Sun, Jul 23, 2017 at 04:04:33PM +0100, Tim Mackinnon wrote: >> I think my thread is misunderstood - I???m not saying change how >> methods work, class methods are fine, instance methods are fine - >> I???m just saying I don???t think its ideal anymore to see them so >> separately in our UI. It was really driven home watching great >> programmers struggle (sure Smalltalk is a bit different - and there >> are many elegant things we have, but class methods are pretty normal >> in many languages) - and I have a similar frustration in that I find >> it a straight jacket that we have to click that class button just >> because we want to write what is effectively a constructor that occurs >> to us when we are writing an instance method. Its very jarring and >> breaks your flow to ???switch mode??? to type one in. > > From a purely subjective perspective, having programmed in an > environment where instance and class methods were mixed together > (Python), my opinion is that it makes things more difficult to > understand. > > I also think from a theoretical perspective that they should be kept > separate: > > Sending an instance method means sending a message to a different object > from sending a class method, so they should be kept separate. > > While I agree that visually Nautilus could do a much better job of > distinguishing between instance and class methods, it isn't an argument > in favour of mixing them in a single list. > > > Cheers, > Alistair > > >> I think Pharo is an environment to experiment with how we think about >> programming (in Smalltalk as well as other languages) - GTInspector is >> marvellous, that is something that really shows how thinking about the >> problem differently can make such a difference. While, I think our >> standard code browsers are ok - they are stuck in a rut that we need >> to break. Calypso is a hint at what is possible, but I want >> GTinspector type thinking more prevalent??? with similar types of >> ideas that inspire us to code better. >> >> Anyway, it seems like I need to take this away and try some >> experiments by myself. >> >> Tim >
