Re: Suggested base class additions

James Foster wrote:

> Windows is used
> primarily because it is the host for Dolphin!

That, I think, expresses as well as anything could the argument /against/
trying to achieve complete coverage of the Win32 APIs in the standard image.

If you think of Dolphin as primarily a Smalltalk-flavoured front-end to Win32,
then it'd seem quite natural to have all the API wrapped/exposed.

If, OTOH, you think of Dolphin as a Smalltalk environment that happens to run
on Windows, then the less you see of the Win32 cesspit the better.

Both viewpoints are valid, but I lean to the latter view myself -- I sometimes
have to work at the Win32 level, but I don't like it. Broadly speaking the
workflow is: (1) decide I want to do something, (2) realise that nothing in the
base image provides that functionality, (3) check the usual goodies and with
luck find something pre-packed by some kind soul, or if not then (4) sigh, (5)
consider carefully whether I really need the function, (6) sigh again, (7) open
up MSDN and start studying the relevant API, (8) give up in disgust, (9) repeat
steps 6..8 an arbitrary number of times, (10) sigh for about the millionth
time, (11) start coding, (12) continue coding, (13) try it and find that it
doesn't work, (14) consider carefully whether suicide might not be an easier
option, (15) go back to MSDN and find (with luck) the cunningly hidden sentence
that points out that the obvious way of using the API doesn't work, (16)
redesign my stuff, (16) more coding, (17) finally it works... on WinXP. Try it
out on a Win2K machine, goto (5).

The point I'm trying to make is that just having the raw API exposed
(especially if without comments as in your earlier post) doesn't help much.
You /have/ to work from MSDN, and by far the least difficult thing about using
a Win32 feature is actually wrapping any missing structures and APIs.

BTW, if you want to see a Smalltalk that aims primarily to be a front-end for
Win32, then you could check out ST-MT which -- when I last looked (several
years ago) -- tended to use the Win32 APIs raw.

-- chris


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