Reviving Smalltalk-78: The First Modern Smalltalk Lives Again (2014) [pdf]

Post by incepted » Thu, Oct 15, 2015, 5:52 AM UTC

cwp wrote: post #20

incepted wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Smalltalk does have refactoring IDEs. Yes, but very few of those are automated. Which is not surprising since the absence of types in Smalltalk can lead to refactorings that break your code, so user supervision is necessary. > I brought up the history because it's pretty cheeky to say that Java is better than Smalltalk because it has a refactoring IDE. Definitely, so it's a good thing I never said such a thing.

> Yes, but very few of those are automated. Which is not surprising since the absence of types in Smalltalk can lead to refactorings that break your code, so user supervision is necessary. This is just not true. Go download a copy of VisualWorks. Try a Squeak image with OmniBrowser installed. They both have IDEs with automated refactorings. I have used both. I have contributed to the OmniBrowser implementation. What…

Post by incepted » Thu, Oct 15, 2015, 2:22 PM UTC

cwp wrote: post #22

incepted wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They both have IDEs with automated refactorings. Yes but they do not guarantee correctness. They can't, the IDE simply doesn't have enough type information for that.

As a matter of fact, they do. Unlike Java IDEs, Smalltalk dev tools are implemented via reflection on the running program. Between information available from the runtime data structures in the program and the fact that Smalltalk uses single dispatch polymorphism, static type declarations aren't necessary for correct automatic refactorings. This will be my last post in this thread.

Post by incepted » Fri, Oct 16, 2015, 2:12 AM UTC

cwp wrote: post #24

incepted wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> static type declarations aren't necessary for correct automatic refactorings. They very much are, it's a scientific fact (look up the Curry-Howard isomorphism).

Ah. An academic. Of course.