[Newbies] Re: Recap: How to empty a collection

[Blake]

On Tue, 19 Feb 2008 15:08:56 -0800, nicolas cellier <ncellier at ifrance.com>  
wrote:

> Blake a écrit :
>
>> Well, from what I was reading, "slow" and "smells" is putting it too  
>> mildly. It sounds like it can corrupt your image, i.e., leave you with  
>> non-working objects in unexpected places. I wouldn't even mention it.
>
> Huh?
> Have a proof of what you wrote?

Proof? None at all. I just have this, by Gulik:

"[become:] doesn't work fine. It breaks code that relies on hashes;  
specifically, a Dictionary elsewhere in yo ur image can start acting  
screwy if you do a #become: variant that doesn't preserve an object's  
hash. See #becomeForward>>copyHash:. You would then also be relying on a  
Squeakish behaviour and your code would become less portable across Sm  
alltalk dialects.

They are also a fantastic way to introduce bugs of various sorts, and can  
even cause an image to crash (as in, stack trace and exit to the OS). Say,  
for example, that one of the arguments you pass is accidently nil, true or  
false? Your image would c ontinue working... for a while."

Does this sound like something a newbie should use? No, it does not.

	===Blake===