[self-interest] Re: documentation

Thorsten Dittmar thormar at me.com
Mon Jul 25 17:27:16 UTC 2016


I don’t have deep knowledge about the self compiler architecture, so maybe it is completely nonsense…

When I got it right, the compiler is translating a peace of self code on the fly, when it will be executed the first time. Part of this process is the binding. When you reinvoke the same method again the precompiled code will be reused. If you reinvoke it with a different parameter set a new precompiled code will be created. As long as the code cache is not full all precompiled method will be stored. 

If we now search in this cache we should be able to find all precompiled variants of a method, or? If so, we should be able to find out what “kind” of objects where involved, or?

When I have it correctly in mind, GEODE, the Gemstone IDE did something similar in the good old days you had mentioned. Gemstones Smalltalk implementation had a type system, but you where able to start lazy/fuzzy with typing. The IDE was able to collect type information while you where executing the code. By that you where able to type stronger and to be more precise more accurate over time.

My idea was to do something similar… collect information during the code execution to give some hints about the objects which where bind to variable c in the past.

Makes this sense?
On 25 July 2016 at 17:19:04, David Ungar ungar at me.com [self-interest] (self-interest at yahoogroups.com) wrote:

Inconceivable in 1993. How soon before you can Google all the past values of any expression in any program?

- David (from iPad, typos likely)

On Jul 25, 2016, at 3:57 AM, Thorsten Dittmar thormar at me.com [self-interest] <self-interest at yahoogroups.com> wrote:

 
Maybe this is a stupid idea maybe not… 

when I have it correctly in mind we have a binary code cache. in this cache “all the past" combinations of parameters are stored as a different “binary snippet”. maybe it would be a good idea to make this accessible from the editor. So a kind of a "mouse over” for a parameter, which will show up which objects where involved in the past.


On 25 July 2016 at 12:03:46, James Noble kjx at mcs.vuw.ac.nz [self-interest] (self-interest at yahoogroups.com) wrote:

 
> Great examples. But you omitted the source code.

and this I think is one of the most significant cultural changes between Smalltalk and Java -- pretty much a generational change.

Smalltalk people expected to read the source code,
ditto for things like MacApp, ET++, MFC, all shipped
with code and the expectation people would read it.
The Lions book is another example. Software Tools.

Then came Javadoc - and now people expect to be
able to read only the documentation. I do it myself:
read the code in Smalltalk or Self (or Grace):
read the doc in C# or Java.

a micro-paradigm shift if you will.

James



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