Object-focused environments revisited

Developers write Object-Oriented programs using numerous tools that come as part of integrated development environments (IDEs). We focus on the tool based interfaces of a dynamic class-based language named Smalltalk. Smalltalk IDEs have remained the same for almost 30 years now, despite that they have been found to induce problems related to navigation and the loss of context. The tools work on a textual representation of a program: the source code, which makes it more difficult to comprehend and manipulate the system under construction. In reaction to that, researchers have proposed building IDEs around other metaphors. We explore the desktop metaphor applied to Object-Oriented languages in the form of an object-focused environment, and provide a detailed description of our working prototype, named Gaucho. Our goal is to depart from IDEs with tool based interfaces and fancy text editors, towards an environment that eases the interaction and the crafting of objects by providing more concrete means of manipulation within the interface.