On Aug 30, 2007, at 7:55 AM, Yoshiki Ohshima wrote:
I don't see real benefit to change the language just to achieve a
very tiny, tiny subjective benefit at some corner cases.
As many have pointed out, the unary messages or binary messages are already "piped"
(strange word, as they are just ordinally chained expressions after
all). So, insisting that Smalltalk-80 lacks the concept is not simply
true.
This is absolutely false.
Smalltalk-80 lacks the concept of EASY "pipes" (chained functional applications)
as it is evident from the difference between
(((obj method:param1) method:param2) method:param3)
and
obj method:param1 | method:param2 | method:param3.
Smalltalk does't have EASY chained message sends .
To the daily programmers life means: either you do
- collect:thenSelect: -> This is a big source of bloat...
or:
- ((obj collect:...) send: ...) -> well... this is simply ugly and difficult write while prototyping
no other way in Smalltalk.
Smalltalk is inconsistent too.
obj send1 send2 send3.
A perfect pipe. Is it ? Too bad that you can do only it sometimes not when you want.
You can do it only if the method has no parameters.
This is a fact. No opinions.
It's inconsistent and easy chained functional applications are missing, and this has dramatic effects on the rest of the language.
Many proposed syntax for it in this thread are tiny syntax sugar,
and comes with a lot of unnecessary surprises. (I like the clever
tricks and aesthetic sense people have shown, though.)
I've shown how it's not just a syntax change. It will have a domino effect. It will change dramatically the whole language.
BTW, to the eyes of a real functional programmer, the message
patterns connected with '|' looks like a pattern matching expression.
This will be another reason to say it is an unnecessary surprise.
BTW, to the real functional programmer, programming is about function selection and function application.
It just happens that the `|` is traditionally used to separate pattern matching. But other characters could be used and have been proposed.
To the eyes of a real functional what strikes most is the absence of an easy "function application" (not very precise thou, because smalltalk have objects and messaging)
If we think about the magnitude of changes from Smalltalk-72 to
Smalltalk-76 to Smalltalk-80, I hope the change to the language has
that kind of magnitude.
Putting the pipe will dramatically change the language.
It will become more functional, instead for more objective.
Objects will have some reasons to stay dumb instead of smart.
Long chains will start to appear and will replace the need for complex objects.
Economically the users in the long term will search for a `common` protocol to maximize the `get free combined functionality` effect.
Each point has examples, historical references and quantitative analysis. It's not just opinions of one guy.
Is what all the others are doing (unix, lisp, erlang, haskell, ocaml).
I like Smalltalk because the guys who did it got right that programming is for humans. The only a structure similar to a living organism can be able to deal with complexity. But at the same time they, in my humble opinion, they missed that humans - and this is important - think functionally. This is true today, was true in past, and will be true in the future.
And smalltalk IS good for functional programming but it needs this fix, if it want's to do the job really well.
But the community might say "we don't want that".
Or might say "make smalltalk more attractive to functional programmers".
Putting the pipe is a HUGE change. It's like saying "Smalltalk is a functional programming language. By the way it's also an object oriented one".
On Aug 30, 2007, at 7:55 AM, Yoshiki Ohshima wrote:
If one feels that he has to use many exclamation marks
in a row or many capitalized words when he is supposed to convince
people logically, it is a "smell" of lack of deep logic.
I'm writing in a discussion group. I'm not writing to publish a paper. I'll put as many exclamation marks I want, as many question marks I want and USE ALL THE CAPITALIZED WORDS I WANT. Or I mIgHt EvEn WriTe Like ThIs. Joking :-). But I do apologize for my writing skills, and will do better.
But my arguments are clear, logical, supported by history references and examples.
I'm sure you can do the the hard work of ignoring the capitalized words and exclamation marks as many are doing, and focus a bit more on the message that I'm trying to convey.
Fabio Filasieno