On Smalltalk IDEs (Squeak, VisualWorks, etc), how can you navigate away from a message's code you're working on to inspect another?

Question

In every IDE I've tried so far, if I'm partway through writing a message and need to look at the code of another, the browser asks me if I want to save. But if I say I do want to save, it actually tries to compile/syntax check the code, and refuses to perform the save if it does not pass. The only way to view the source of another message seems to be to say "no" to save and have everything wiped. How can I look at another class incidentally, or save code I am partway through working on that might not build right now?

Answer 1

Smalltalk is a multi-browser system. You'll need to have lots of different browsers open. Smalltalk is opinionated. The system browser (Nautilus) doesn't make it easy to view long methods, steering you towards writing short ones. It doesn't make it easy to have non-compiling code in a method, to steer you towards making small changes.

Experimental/prototypical code you might want to have in a Workspace/Playground. That can save to disk.

We are aware that it is an issue for people new to Smalltalk. We tried some fixes, they were a lot worse.