>1) We should keep the receiver in message patterns.
>2) We want to get rid of assignment.

We? :-)

>Solution: If we had the notion of "implicit accessors," we could write,
>
>    | var |
>    self var: 42.
>    Transcript show: self var printString; cr.

But then do the full step and get rid of "| var |" That piece of syntax
isn't needed at all.  Make local variable creation (wait, you don't have
variables so how to call them?) implicit.  Python, btw, does the same and
for a Smalltalker who's already used to argumenting for the advantages of
dynamic typing against static typing it shouldn't be too difficult to also
find some arguments for these dynamic storage location ;-)

"self var: 42" simply creates a new local storage and assigns 42 if there's
no storage. Actually, it maintains a simply dictionary of key/value pairs.
We can even make this explicit

self localsAt: #var put: 42
Transcript show: (self localsAt: #var) printString; cr

Object>>localsAt: key put: value
  (WeakMethodContextDict 
     at: thisContext sender receiver
     ifAbsentPut: [Dictionary new])
       at: key put: value
Object>>localsAt: key
  ^(WeakMethodContextDict at: thisContext sender receiver)
      at: key

Of course, instead of self-sends, using symbols would also work :-)

But what's the benefit of this approach?  I don't see it.


bye
--
Stefan Matthias Aust  //  Bevor wir fallen, fallen wir lieber auf.