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From: aland@servio.slc.com (Alan Darlington)
Subject: Re: Your oppionion about PARTS?
Message-ID: <1996Feb22.191822.9628@slc.com>
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Organization: GemStone Systems, Inc., Beaverton OR, USA
References: <4gamg9$kas@freeside.cls.de>
Date: Thu, 22 Feb 1996 19:18:22 GMT
Lines: 56

sma@kiel.netsurf.de (Stefan Matthias Aust) writes:
<snip> 
> How useful is PARTS for buissiness application design?

For relatively simple applications needing data entry and
reporting, very useful.

>Does it really save development time?

Yes, especially for simpler applications.  I hear rumors
that PARTS does not scale up well for complex application
windows, so you may not save as much time for these.  My
(somewhat limited) experience with PARTS tends to support
these rumors.

> Does it restrict the developer to only basic tasks?

The visual builder interface has its limits, but in
general you may add code to tailor the window when it
is created at run time.  This does, of course, require
a lot more knowledge of PARTS internals!  If needed,
you may also design your own widgets, but this needs
expert programmers.

> Is visual design a new stepstone or a dead end?

Definitely an advance (IMO).  Why waste time reinventing
low-level stuff, when what you should really be doing is
writing application code (or building application
windows!  :-)

> Is PARTS used at all?

Yes.  I use it.

> What's about the runtime overhead?

Of course there is some, but my experience (11 years in
Smalltalk and 3 commercial applications) is that you won't
notice it on today's machines.  (I wouldn't recommend a
Smalltalk application on a 286 even if you did your own
windows!)  Application-specific code supporting a window is
_much_ more likely to be a problem, so save your energy for
this area.

> Thanks,
> bye
> --
> Stefan Matthias Aust  //  ...come on, kiss the frog!
>         http://www.kiel.netsurf.de/homes/sma/

  Hope this helps,
  Alan
    (standard disclaimer)


