Re: Symbol>>capitalized?

I generally figure any string manipulation on a symbol results in a string but Symbol>>capitalized is implemented as

capitalized

    ^self asString capitalized asSymbol

I found this while watching the process browser running a lengthy script in the background and found about 80% of time was spent in WeakSet scanFor:

I did a search of the image and couldn't find a single instance of sending capitalized to a symbol where the caller was going to use it as a symbol rather than a string.

So, in the name of performance, I vote to nuke this method or change it to just return a string.

I would be much more convinced if you had said "I've been making this change to all my programs for the past year and have never ran into any difficulty because of it."

There isn't much risk if you make that change to your image because you will remember that you made the change and if you run into a problem because of it, you'll probably catch it right away. However, if we make the change to the standard image then it might change the behavior of someone's application who doesn't know the change was made and so will have a hard time figuring out what happened.

I suggest you make that change in all your programs and report back next year. In fact, I encourage lots of people to make that change. Then, when we have a debate in a year we can have testimonials like "I tried it and everything was fine" or "I tried it and it broke XXX". That would be the right time to make the change. Or not.

Performance improvements are good, and we want to be continually making them. Hoever, they are rarely critical, and it is better to check them out carefully before making them.

-Ralph Johnson