Sunday 23 June 2002

I am trying to figure out how to set up a Smalltalk infinite Form. Not an InfiniteForm, which is a sibling class (inherits from DisplayMedium as well), but which fills up an entire field with a single Form repeated over and over, but a Form of inifinite extent. I need a Form that can expand on demand and yet keep a small memory footprint. I figure something along the lines of a sparse matrix, with empty Points not being represented. Perhaps a Form with an on-demand Bitmap, that expands whenever a Point is accessed outside the current bounds? But allocating a bigger Bitmap on each bounds miss will probably cause a performance hit :.). How about a collection of smaller Bitmaps that are already allocated and are assigned a particular offset when needed, then, when time permits, are rolled into a larger Bitmap? Or when called to BitBlt, perhaps alter the message to BitBlt every used Bitmap—that is, use the Composite design pattern? 8:38:41 PM    comment [] It goes against the grain of modern education to teach children to program. What fun is there in making plans, acquiring discipline in organizing thoughts, devoting attention to detail and learning to be self-critical? —Alan Perlis, Epigrams in Programming 7:15:57 PM    comment []

© Copyright 2002 Richard Allan Baruz. Last update: 11/17/02; 2:45:17 AM.