Craig, You and SmartReferenceStream are effectively assuming that user==programmer; I submit it is in our interest to many ordinary users of Smalltalk applications. All that should be required is to have code that is newer than the stream, and neither user nor developer should be bothered with conversions. What you are doing on the fly should be done at the time of the layout change by the developer of the class(es) being serialized.
Bill ________________________________________ From: pharo-project-boun...@lists.gforge.inria.fr [pharo-project-boun...@lists.gforge.inria.fr] On Behalf Of Craig Latta [cr...@netjam.org] Sent: Friday, February 18, 2011 6:42 PM To: pharo-project@lists.gforge.inria.fr Subject: Re: [Pharo-project] A new GUI visual designer Hi Bill-- > You are setting up some of the same mistakes that were made in > SmartReferenceStream, only with both sides involved. What mistakes were those? > This is a simple problem calling for a careful solution. I agree, and this seems a lot simpler to me than what has come before. > What you are doing *could* be ok with the developer of both systems > on hand to monitor it, but that will be rare. Hm, I don't think that's true. In my use so far, this system has reduced the number of situations requiring human intervention, not increased them (mostly to do with missing prerequisites, out-of-date class definitions, and class name conflicts). > What you want are tools that make it easy to write the converters > (which belong in the affected classes, not the serializer - another > SmartReferenceStream oddity). Naiad (Spoon's module system) is indeed implemented that way; there is no "serializer". -C -- Craig Latta www.netjam.org/resume +31 06 2757 7177 + 1 415 287 3547