Re: New user questions

Hello :) Seeing this post, this is the occasion for me to give my (raw) impressions on many points. Probably you won't understand some as I have not a very clear vision so just skip over them :)... But It might help to understand newbee's problems... that would be great ! When I see Pier (with seaside), ma first and naïve impression is that if we have there a killer-app for squeak..smalltalk & co... To me, the way to spread smalltalk is to access the companies world (especially small and medium ones) and there is a big demand on organisationnel tool (like groupware, web app). I think a Pier version should be far more elegant and clean thant a php one... I may be totally wrong but I think that we (maybe including myself is a bit premature) could develop a kind of mini-ERP in Pier/seaside... based on component... for small companies... If we can do that then no doubt that will a good smalltalk global interest revival... does it seem possible to you ? or naive ;) If it was only Pier :) the thing is I always struggle with understanding complex (because modular) packages... Possibilities are huge but it's hard to know where to start and the limits... maybe we should collect the bad practices patterns :) to avoid people break the differents frameworks... To me, what makes Pier hard to understand is probably Magritte and seaside. To "fully" understand Pier I think one have to understand Magritte first and it's hard not to blend all concepts (visitor in magritte, visitor in pier, a renderer is a visitor for Pier, renderer in Seaside...) - at least for me... Also, and maybe worst, Seaside main concepts has to be known too... I think maybe to introduce Pier, it would be good to have a seaside and magritte overview first... what it is and what it is not... yes personnaly I like method comment... :). Especially in a framework I like to have information on methods that should or should'nt be modified... One of my problem is that I always change code in place where I shouldn't... I also agree that tests are a good doc... would it be possible to have access to the tests when browsing a class ? maybe dynamically copy the test code in the related tested class comment pane ? I still don't understand well how MAMemento works (I know it's a kind of proxy but I cannot see him while exploring objects except in some fatal error due to bad manipulations...). somethink also what should be good is the steps needed to add a new magritte structure... (define the structure and the different visitors.... I see that you (Lukas) create your defaults visitors with a class method... is it something reproductible ?) also MAgritte first reflex is to associate a description to each object attributes that need beeing edited and viewed. But what's look very powerful to is the dynamic construction of descriptions... but I just have no idea on how to proceed (what I'm authorized to do and what I'm not). also, the PRCommand stuff is still not clear for me... the principle is ok (command acting on a Pier Structure that get logged... important for the prevalence persistency). Like for adding a description in Magritte, I need examples or guidance on steps to add a command, a widget (the tutorial of Damien were good for that...) Does the prevelence orientation makes traditionnal persistency mechanisms (relationnal or object databases) irrelevant or complementary ? I don't really see how it works together, I mean in a complementary way... and as people are used to work with databases and always ask for that... Last Point I'm lost with PRQueryVisitor :) and what are the binary visitor ? related to persistency ? Lukas is saying that the Report is still experimental in his last annoucment. I played a bit with...and I understand because it's a so general and powerful component that it has to be done last I think I find not handy the edit meta command at this stage (ok for me but could be hard to get for a user...)... Does Damien work on description from database tuple could be generalized ?... For instance, to make a dash-board report and the possibility to modify tuple from Pier... Connecting Pier with a database like that complicate my already limited understanding... what is saved then with the persistency mechanism ? is it compatible with database evolutions etc... I think that's all for now... hope it's not too blur... Cédrick -- */Cédrick/**/ Béler/* E-mail: cbeler(a)enit.fr <mailto:cbeler@enit.fr>