"Torge Husfeldt" <jean-jaques.gelee at gmx.de> wrote:
>If you talk about efficiency you can argue that everybody should write:
>
>    something == nil ifTrue:[whatever]
>
>again because #== is also noLookUp. I find this really upsetting because
>ifNil:ifNotNil: is so much nicer and you shouldn't have to do something
>twice in the same way at different places (I hate code duplication).
>BTW are you sure this difference still exists? I heard somebody optimized
>#ifNil:ifNotNil: in the compiler significantly raising its acceptance in the
>(performance hungry) community.

Folks -

We at Squeak Central started using ifNil:(etc) two years ago because we thought it was simpler and cleaner, and I planned to compile it inline, as we now do for ifTrue:(etc).  The simple fact is that my to-do list has not yet receded to the level of this item.

But that is the plan.  If you like the construct, I encourage you to use it.  If you enjoy mucking about in the compiler, have a go at it (*).  And if you just want it to go faster, just wait.

	- Dan

(*) if you want to do this...

1.  Announce your intentions first so we don't have overlap.

2.  Be sure to make the decompiler happy with the new construct before declaring a victory.