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It's Alive! What a Live Object Environment Changes in Software Engineering Practice

Julián Grigera, Steven Costiou, Juan Cruz Gardey, Stéphane Ducasse

TL;DR

This article presents some tools developers use in Pharo that support API evolution through automated rewriting of deprecated calls, and Object-Centric Breakpoints -- when a problem cannot be efficiently solved with a dummy trace, developers can use break points that will only halt for a given instance.

Abstract

Tools shape our mind. This is why it is important to have extensible and flexible tools for developers to adapt to their needs. Reasoning about programs in the abstract -- by imagining what objects should look like -- can make it harder to grasp the underlying model. In Smalltalk environments like Pharo, developers work closely with their objects, gaining immediate feedback -- not guessing how they will look like but directly interacting with them. This article presents some tools developers use in Pharo: Inspector custom views for defining specific views and navigation for objects, Microcommits for reverting changes without the need to commit and pull, Xtreme TDD that allows developers to code in the debugger, On the Fly Rewriting Deprecations that support API evolution through automated rewriting of deprecated calls, and Object-Centric Breakpoints -- when a problem cannot be efficiently solved with a dummy trace, developers can use break points that will only halt for a given instance. By showcasing these features that evolved alongside Smalltalk, we invite reflection on how other IDEs could rethink some of their features and improve developers' workflows.

It's Alive! What a Live Object Environment Changes in Software Engineering Practice

TL;DR

This article presents some tools developers use in Pharo that support API evolution through automated rewriting of deprecated calls, and Object-Centric Breakpoints -- when a problem cannot be efficiently solved with a dummy trace, developers can use break points that will only halt for a given instance.

Abstract

Tools shape our mind. This is why it is important to have extensible and flexible tools for developers to adapt to their needs. Reasoning about programs in the abstract -- by imagining what objects should look like -- can make it harder to grasp the underlying model. In Smalltalk environments like Pharo, developers work closely with their objects, gaining immediate feedback -- not guessing how they will look like but directly interacting with them. This article presents some tools developers use in Pharo: Inspector custom views for defining specific views and navigation for objects, Microcommits for reverting changes without the need to commit and pull, Xtreme TDD that allows developers to code in the debugger, On the Fly Rewriting Deprecations that support API evolution through automated rewriting of deprecated calls, and Object-Centric Breakpoints -- when a problem cannot be efficiently solved with a dummy trace, developers can use break points that will only halt for a given instance. By showcasing these features that evolved alongside Smalltalk, we invite reflection on how other IDEs could rethink some of their features and improve developers' workflows.
Paper Structure (9 sections, 5 figures)

This paper contains 9 sections, 5 figures.

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Scenario: Debugger-Driven Development
  3. Building from the debugger.
  4. Generating code with live values.
  5. Extending the debugger with domain-specific tools.
  6. Scenario: Extending the IDE in action
  7. Scenario: Evolution
  8. Discussion
  9. Conclusions

Figures (5)

  • Figure 1: The debugger proposes to create unknown methods.
  • Figure 2: The developer implements the missing method in the debugger and resumes the execution.
  • Figure 3: Creation and integration of a new stepping tool.
  • Figure 4: Navigating the tree structure of an SVG world map file.
  • Figure 5: Inspecting a list of country objects and seeing their visual aspects.