(Whew, busy Squeak list today.  Sorry to drag this thread on a little
further, but...)

On Tue, 16 Mar 1999, Jarvis, Robert P. wrote:

> <two-cents-worth>
> Personally I like both the _ (or <- for the ANSI-challenged) and the ^
> glyphs.

I don't think there will ever be any serious movement to replace the ^
(carat/up-arrow) glyph.  The fact that it shows up as an up-arrow in
Squeak isn't a problem, because the equivalent character outside of Squeak
(the carat) is the Smalltalk standard for returning from a method.  (I
kind of like the fact that it's an up-arrow in Squeak, it gives you the
sense up jumping "up" out of a method.)

Besides, replacing ^ directly with a textual word is problematic because
it would break the basic rule that textual words must be either a message
or an object (variable).  So, "return something" or "answer something"
wouldn't work.  You could make it "something return", but that starts to
look like an ordinary message which your eye might pass over too easily....

I guess a better argument for using something other than ^ for returning
is that you could then use ^ in place of raisedTo:, e.g. x^2, which is
semi-standard typed-math notation.  (When was this introduced?)  Still, it
ain't gonna happen. :-)

(As far as the assignment operator goes, I probably like the left-arrow
symbol the most, although the := notation is generally okay.  Seeing the
assignment as an actual underscore outside of Squeak is truly horrible,
though, in my opinion... the underscore character itself doesn't imply
anything about assignment.  So, it's a tough call... I guess I would be
okay with switching everything to the := operator.)

- Doug Way
  EAI/Transom Technogies, Ann Arbor, MI
  dway at eai.com, dway at mat.net
  http://www.transom.com

  Smalltalk: Guaranteed Y10K Compliant