From: Curt Hibbs <curt@...>
Date: 2002-01-15T13:27:01+09:00
Subject: RE: Small Methods - a ramble

> From: Avi Bryant [mailto:avi@beta4.com]
> Sent: Monday, January 14, 2002 4:50 PM
>
> Part of what I very much like about the smalltalk browser has to do
> with its ergonomics: first, that the piece of code you're reading is
> always in exactly the same physical location on the screen.  I find
> this much easier than jumping around in a file - my attention stays
> focused on the same place while the content changes.  If you're
> proposing a system that jumps around selecting methods for you, I
> would very much like it to keep the current window and method always
> centered on the screen.

I think that is an excellent point!

> Second, I find column browsers much more efficient than collapsible
> trees, at least when the hierarchy is of known depth (I know, with
> nested classes in Ruby it's not entirely known...).  Part of this,
> again, has to do with keeping the same locations and having easy
> targets for a mouse to hit - if classes are always on the left and
> methods on the right, you build up more muscle memory than in a
> constantly changing and collapsing tree.

Another, good point. With trees, its easy to start losing your context as
you start expanding the tree to the point that things get pushed off the
screen.

I think its useful to have both techniques available. VisualAge for Java
used both ways and I would sometime find myself using a particular browser
just for the tree or the other browser just for the columns -- depending on
what I was doing.

Curt