ross@prls.UUCP (Ross Morley) (09/14/90)
In article <1990Sep13.011214.24799@cs.columbia.edu> kearns@cs.columbia.edu (Steve Kearns) writes: >One of the biggest pains of smalltalk-like classes is that >to understand one class may require scanning four or five classes >(the inherited ones). This is neccessary to find out all the functions >and variables that make up a derived object. (some stuff omitted) >A better solution seems to be the following: soon we will all be using >nifty class browsers. I would suggest that these class browsers >automatically copy the inherited items (and their documentation, >please) into the subclass with the inherited keyword, or else in >italics, or prefixed with the superclass name. Tektronix has a very nice hierarchical class browser with its Smalltalk-80 (>= v 2.2 ?). It lets you choose what level of the hierarchy you want to look up to, and shows all items inherited from that level down to the class you are looking at as if they were part of that class. Additionally, when you are looking at a method (smalltalkese for member function) that overrides a method defined in a superclass, you can readily look at its implementation at any level of the hierarchy. If you edit it, you can recompile it to any level from the lowest up to the level you were looking at - so you can browse and edit entire class hierarchies in a natural way. Note that this does not COPY inherited items into the subclass automatically, but it allows you see the subclass in terms of the methods actually accessible to it, regardless of the level they were defined at. So if anyone is thinking of making a nifty class browser, I recommend taking a look at Tek Smalltalk-80 for ideas. I wish they had this in ParcPlace Smalltalk-80 as well (hence the cross posting to comp.lang.smalltalk). -- Ross P. Morley pyramid!prls!ross Philips Research, Sunnyvale philabs!prls!ross 811 E. Arques Ave (MS02) ross@prls.uucp Sunnyvale, CA 94088-3409 Tel. (408) 991 5057
klimas@iccgcc.decnet.ab.com (09/14/90)
In article <44069@prls.UUCP>, ross@prls.UUCP (Ross Morley) writes: (stuff deleted that says the following point) > but it allows you see the subclass in terms of the methods actually > accessible to it, regardless of the level they were defined at. > > So if anyone is thinking of making a nifty class browser, I recommend taking > a look at Tek Smalltalk-80 for ideas. I wish they had this in ParcPlace > Smalltalk-80 as well (hence the cross posting to comp.lang.smalltalk). The Digitalk /V-PM class browser supports this type of "flattening" operation also. It is no big deal to include all of the inherited methods in the class hierarchy browser and I have seen some goodies for /V286 that include an extra button to provide this display.