Smalltalk Design Question

Mike Klein mike at twinsun.com
Tue Feb 3 00:09:17 UTC 1998


> I wrote:
> 
> > It certainly would be nice for the corrector to change
> > 
> >         iszero -> isZero
> > 
> > but it would be nicer, still for it to correct:
> > 
> >         expandCollection -> growCollection
> > 
> > or
> > 
> >         emitFourBytes -> emit4Bytes
> > 
> > sort of a thesaures based corrector.
> 
> Yeah, exactly what I wanted all those years:
> 
> A Do-What-I-Mean-Not-What-I-Say approach to programming.
> 
> The ideal thing would be a syntax checker and corrector which
> would generate working programs even if I just rolled my head
> on the keyboard. :-)

Forget Do-What-I-Mean... press the Do-WantI-Want button.
(It's labeled "on/off"  or "0/1" on most computers)
Trust me... It's really what you want.  :-)

> I'm not saying that those little helpful tricks such as spell
> checking, automatic declaration of variables etc. are bad.
> They're actually quite useful, and whenever I'm forced to use
> VisualAge at a customer project I yearn for the helpfulness
> of Smalltalk-80 derived system such as VisualWorks or Squeak.
> 
Likewise, I'm sure.
> 
> So please, if you think you have a great idea that would make
> programming a breeze, just implement it in Squeak, and see whether
> it really helps. It's not that difficult. But please stop the
> endless discussion...

I've found that it does help, mostly in a browsing context,
though the system is not-ready-for-prime-time.  (but then neither is Squeak).

Please do not ask people to stop discussions that you personally find
uninteresting.  I don't like reading newbie questions, or bug fixes for
systems I dont use, but that's why we have the 'delete' command.

> nuf said
Not enough for me...

Also, remember, comments such as yours were also leavied against
polymorphism.  "I don't what the computer to guess what function
I'm calling...I want to tell it explicitly"


Cheers,
	Mike Klein





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