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<p>Bon retour à Smalltalk Robert!!!!<br>
</p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 2026-02-28 11:06, Robert Chifflet
via Cuis-dev wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:CAL8MCbqqm4qe+wUmKdwCfQL80t9rTUx4tLXHe3zoU76icKO4+g@mail.gmail.com">
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<div dir="auto">i am a long-retired Smalltalk developer from back
in Digitalk who worked later mostly in VisualWorks and VisualAge
in USA, but more in Dolphin for myself until Roel Wuyts began
adding rules engine to Squeak. I also took an interest in early
Seaside versus Aida.</div>
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto">today i am teaching my brilliant grand-child Etoys
and DrGeo.</div>
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto">But when we go to Cuis itself, we hit many
walkbacks.</div>
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto">For example:</div>
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto">the UI has a Help on World menu with a selection
label </div>
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto">ClassCommentBrowser.</div>
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto">Unlike TerseGuide,</div>
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto">it requires manually loading package
'ClassCommentBrowser'</div>
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto">which use of</div>
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto">Feature require:</div>
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto">will fail.</div>
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto">I do not see such a package at GitHub.</div>
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto">I mention this because many other slightly deeper
explorations also fail.</div>
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto">We inspect newly opened Text Editor and i say look
for a class >>open method</div>
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto">TextEditor window inspect revealed that it is
merely a SystemWindow, but in practice the obvious </div>
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto">>>open... </div>
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto">class methods will fail.</div>
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto">ONLY</div>
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto">SystemWindow editText: label: wrap:</div>
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto"> will open on a (TextModel withText: 'Hello
World')</div>
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto">but with that required label: and with </div>
<div dir="auto">wrap: false<br clear="all">
<br>
The simplicity of having a World item 'Open | Text Editor' be a
SystemWindow is defeated if the class methods for >>open
will fail on a TextModel, right ?</div>
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto">Or am i mistaken ?</div>
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto">But why should >>buildMorphicWindow</div>
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto">fail on a TextModel if a TextEditor is a
SystemWindow ?</div>
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto">And this comes simply from inspect model and
inspect morph from the top item offered the student by the World
...</div>
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto">To me it is obvious that a TextEditor is not a
SystemWindow, but that is my non-Cuis background showing maybe
...</div>
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto">Am i hitting a transition out of 7.6 ?</div>
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto">Which Cuis image is stable for showing a young
person who likes Dr Geo ?</div>
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto">To me, if TextEditor from the World is a
SystemWindow, the latter must implement the class methods</div>
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto">>>editTextModel: aTextModel</div>
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto">or </div>
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto">>>editPlainText: aString</div>
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto">and then have the defaults such as</div>
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto">label: 'Text Editor'</div>
<div dir="auto">wrap: true</div>
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto">and then let the ab initio student discover the
full method</div>
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto">>>editText: label: wrap:</div>
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto">otherwise simplicity is making simple exploratory
learning too complex.</div>
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto">Note that >>new is no help here as
SystemWindow has no edit text methods on instance side.</div>
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto">i tell my grandChild to look for >>open or
>>openOn: methods for the class they discovered and there
it is</div>
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto">>>open</div>
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto">But what is worse, label is set to nil, so that
one step deeper they hit far too soon a nil check when that will
surely provoke more nil checks just to prevent updates to an
empty String. But an always empty string should never show up as
dirty. And adding checks for nil is the very last thing i want
to show someone new to Smalltalk.</div>
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto">But i am too old for much more than this ... and i
am probably wrong, but exasperated that Cuis is not so simple
for a very bright student.</div>
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto">The documentation is very out of date ... a 50
year old issue for a 5 year old project ? Can the docs better
reflect which stable release they were validated against ? Can
an undergraduate do that task as a project in CS 900, "Intro to
Documentation" ?</div>
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto">i do try for some humour ...</div>
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto">thanks</div>
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto">robert<br>
<br clear="all">
<div dir="auto">
<div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature"
data-smartmail="gmail_signature">G.Robert Shiplett</div>
<div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature"
data-smartmail="gmail_signature">Canada</div>
<div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature"
data-smartmail="gmail_signature">français ou Deutsch</div>
<div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature"
data-smartmail="gmail_signature"><br>
</div>
<div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature"
data-smartmail="gmail_signature">PS</div>
<div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature"
data-smartmail="gmail_signature"><br>
</div>
<div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature"
data-smartmail="gmail_signature">my Spanish is now very
poor, and my Japanese is a struggle: but i can translate
Spanish if you like. I stopped using Russian in 2022 ,
because i spent 2 years in a Ukrainian town. I should have
stopped in 2014. I worry about Argentina's Public
universities ... we have some issues here, too, sad to say
... with a liberal government no better than the
Conservative government before it. Change can be
disappointing.</div>
</div>
</div>
<br>
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