This document proposes improvements to the Pharo developer experience focused on working sets, ubiquity, and navigation. It suggests that working sets should be the central concept for organizing tools and selections. Ubiquity means seamless interactions from text selections for common actions like inspecting and browsing. Navigation needs focus - the ability to scope searches and browsing to the current context like a class or package. Together, focus, ubiquity, and improved navigation could provide a new Pharo coding experience.

1. Proposals for the
Reborn Pharo
Developer
Simon Denier, Damien Pollet, Stéphane Ducasse
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2. My name is Simon Denier
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3. and I have nothing to show
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4. What do I have?
4

5. Some backstory
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6. I’m a newcomer to
Smalltalk
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7. less than a year
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8. Did my time in Java
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9. 5 years with eclipse...
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10. So it’s quite a shock
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11. And sometimes I wonder
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12. “what the f...?”
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13. Good stuff
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14. 14

15. Not so good stuff
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16. 16

17. So I have some ideas
and I want yours
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18. Focus
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19. When I code
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20. I do one thing at a time
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21. Coding is task-oriented
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22. I may browse the system
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23. But I always come back
to a few classes
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24. Unfortunately
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25. 25

26. Working set
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27. Set of interesting items
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28. Selected items
Unsaved items
History items
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29. Tools built around the
working set
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30. Working set
=
the new workhorse
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31. Ubiquity
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32. Select text then...
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33. do it, print it,
inspect it, debug it...
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34. browse class, senders,
implementors
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35. It’s a marvellous thing
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36. Unfortunately
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37. Not every interaction
is so seamless
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38. Menus are
less accessible
than toolbars
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39. Menus are
cumbersome
for most-used actions
39

40. Menus become
cluttered
with many items
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41. What is better?
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42. Pie menus
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43. Good for most used items
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44. Good with mouse gestures
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45. Hyperlink
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46. Semi-modal hyperlinks
in text pane
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47. control+click browse
definition/implementors
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48. control+alt+click browse
references/senders
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49. Ubiquity means
seamless interaction
everywhere
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50. Navigation
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51. So ubiquity is cool for
browsing code
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52. but what about focus?
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53. Did you try browsing
senders of #=?
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54. Do you want
implementors of #new
in package?
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55. We need focus for
navigation and search
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56. Look for
senders of #=
in this class
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57. Look for
implementors of #new
in package
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58. Look for
class definition of String
in the system
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59. Look for
methods of Collection
in its hierarchy
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60. Do you see the pattern?
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61. Look for aspect
of target
in scope
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62. Look for senders
of #=
in this class
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63. Look for implementors
of #new
in package
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64. Look for class definition
of String
in the system
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65. Look for methods
of Collection
in its hierarchy
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66. (all?) search can be
expressed
in this wannabe API
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67. Remember
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68. focus+ubiquity+navigation
=
new Pharo experience!
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