Coordinate order in Array2D

jarvisb at timken.com jarvisb at timken.com
Thu Jan 22 12:15:15 UTC 1998


Originally sent directly to Mike because I wasn't paying attention.
Stupid mail program... <grumble>

Bob

*************************************************************************
**** The following has been forwarded to you from JARVISB
*************************************************************************
Date: 22 January 98, 06:55:29 EST
>From  JARVISB  at CTNVM103
To:   MIKE at INTERNET
<MIKE>:MIKE at TWINSUN.COM

Subject: Re: Coordinate order in Array2D

Mike Klein (mike at twinsun.com) said:
>I know about this wart, having seen peoply bit by it a few times (mixed
>metaphor).  The reason I raise this point, is as a focus for the
>direction of Squeak.  That is, how can Squeak move into the future
>without dragging it's feet in the past.  Is anyone interested in a new
>code base -- Same Smalltalk-80 syntax, but clean up all of the warts
>and all out of the code base?

I think that's an interesting idea, but how does one define 'wart'?  The
issue you bring up (that Number>>positive responds true if the number in
question = 0) is certainly worth looking at (possibly replacing it with
Number>>nonNegative might be a start?), but I can picture people
considering other useful things as 'warts'.  Specifically, I've seen
people question why the #add selector of various collections answers the
object added to the collection instead of the collection itself.  This
is actually a useful feature, but it's not 'intuitive' (whatever that
may mean to you), and at first glance many people (many includes: self
:-) strongly question this feature.  I just suggest moving cautiously
here.

As far as the 'positive' issue goes - well, it's only used once in the
1.30 image (in SystemTracer>>write4Bytes) so changing it to #nonNegative
and changing #positive to be the same as #strictlyPositive might not be
a major thing.  (Incidentally, there are no senders of #strictlyPositive
in the base image, FWIW).  I personally don't care enough about this to
make it an issue but it's your horse, your lance, and your windmill.
Have at.  :-)

Bob Jarvis





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