[Seaside] question on tutorial - contact manager

[John M McIntosh]

On 2010-02-20, at 9:20 AM, Randal L. Schwartz wrote:

> Consider:
> 
> a := 'foo'.
> b := 'foo'.
> a = b "true, but done by comparing character by character"
> a == b "false, because they are actually different String objects"
> 
> c := #foo.
> d := #foo.
> c = d "true, but mapped into..."
> c == d "also true, they are the same object"
> 
> Symbols are often used in code like the above to ensure
> that the comparisons are very quick.

Let me make a few notes about what Randal said:

(a) the example above 
a := 'foo'.
b := 'foo'.
a == b
will evaluate to TRUE in a Squeak workspace because the smalltalk parser/compiler sees the fact that 
'foo' being a constant can be reused as an optimization and both 'a' and 'b' point to it. 


(b) using '==' can be dangerous if you don't understand the implications. For example. 

20 factorial  ==  20 factorial  -> false
yet in a workspace
2432902008176640000 == 2432902008176640000 -> true
and to confuse you more then 
10 factorial == 10 factorial  -> true

(b) is a special case where the resulting integer from '10 factorial' is a SmallInteger, an immediate object, so == considers if 
the value of the immediate object is the same, where as the '20 factorial' is a LargePositiveInteger and we are comparing the
Oops pointer for '==' not the value.  And of course the 2432902008176640000 in a work space is a constant so (a) applies. 


(c) use of a Symbol is more more memory friendly.

 foobar gender = #Female

If the foobar object contains 'Female' this could mean if you have 100,000 foobar objects you could have 100,000 strings 'Female'
if the foobar object contains #Female then all 100,000 foobar objects point to just one symbol. 

--
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John M. McIntosh <johnmci at smalltalkconsulting.com>   Twitter:  squeaker68882
Corporate Smalltalk Consulting Ltd.  http://www.smalltalkconsulting.com
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