While the notation is interesting and arguably easier to read, I am 
worried that it adds new constructs to the syntax. One of the great 
features of Smalltalk is its minimal syntax.


Date forwarded: 	18 Mar 1999 17:47:52 -0000
Date sent:      	Thu, 18 Mar 1999 09:43:35 -0800
From:           	Jerome.Garcia at wj.com (Jerome Garcia)
Subject:        	Re: Dot notation and a crazy idea
To:             	squeak at cs.uiuc.edu, Marcel Weiher <marcel at system.de>
Copies to:      	<cohenb at gemstone.com>
Forwarded by:   	squeak at cs.uiuc.edu
Send reply to:  	squeak at cs.uiuc.edu

>      
> On 3/18/99 Marcel Weiher wrote:
> 
> >
> <crazy-idea>
>      
> In fact, the whole business of refering to objects via name is
> really just a special case of selection.  Which object do you want?   
> The one named 'bert'.
>      
> Let's generalize this back to saying that a dotted name is really a  
> select statement.  So we could have something like:
>      
>         customers.[ name == 'Kay' ].name capitalize.
>      
> instead of
>      
>         customers select: [ :each | each name == 'Kay' ] do: [ :each  
> | each name capitalize ].
>      
> with the square-brackets thingy in the dotted path being a 
> simplified block, though maybe a full block would be better.  (Then  
> again, why shouldn't both types co-exist?)
>      
> Add multiple method returns ( 'sendback' ), and ... wow!  Certainly  
> all sorts of 'generate-and-test' programs become one-liners.
>      
> </crazy-idea>
> >
>      
>      
> I love this crazy-idea. It results in code which is both more readable 
> and more concise.
>      
>      Jerome
> 



Ivan Tomek,

Jodrey School of Computer Science
Acadia University
Nova Scotia, Canada

fax: (902) 585-1067
voice: (902) 585-1467


Life would be so much easier if we could just look at the source code.
Go Smalltalk.