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From: abbott@aerospace.aero.org (Russell J. Abbott)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.smalltalk
Subject: Finding one's way around in the st80 library
Message-ID: <57320@aerospace.AERO.ORG>
Date: 6 Sep 89 15:14:03 GMT
Reply-To: abbott@itro3.aero.org (Russell J. Abbott)
Organization: The Aerospace Corporation, El Segundo, CA
Lines: 35

The project for which we are using st80 has as its goal the development
of a system for organizing and accessing information resources, (e.g.
tools, databases, models, documents, etc.) in a system/network large
enough so that no one knows it completely.  We selected st80 because (a)
it seemed that the problem is best approached from an object-oriented
perspective and (b) st80 provides a head start in developing user
interfaces.

We are now finding that the problem of finding one's way around in st80
itself is quite a problem.  I guess it is commonplace to say that the
major difficulty facing st80 programmers is learning the library.  For
example, I wanted to find a way to parse an input string.  Even though I
was able to find the compiler tools category, I have not yet figured out
what I should call and how to call it so that I can pass it a string of
characters and get back a parse tree.

Consequently, we have tentatively decided to take st80 itself as a test
case and build a system to help one find one's way around.  As a
starter, for example, I envision a global index of terms, each of which
is associated with a hypertext-like entry from which links connect to
the various uses of the term: as a method name, as a class name, as used
in comments, etc.

We also plan to build some sort of structuring capability to help with
the problem discussed in the previous message.

Has anyone built anything along these lines already?  Does anyone have a
wishlist of organizational features they have always wanted in their
st80 systems?

As a first step, we are building a set of classes to implement
relational algebra operations.  Has anyone already done this?  If so, do
you have code that you are willing to share?
-- 
-- Russ abbott@itro3.aero.org