"Pennell, David" wrote:

> I don't know what the right answer is, but I really hate
> having my _'s converted into left arrow's everywhere in
> Squeak, code panes, file lists, etc.  Its almost as much
> fun as looking at Squeak code in an external tool and
> seeing the assignment operators show up as underscores.
>
> I don't see how we will ever be successful at wide spread
> acceptance of Squeak if we co-opt the underscore character.
>
> How about:
>
> 1.  Change the fonts to restore underscore and move <-
>     to another slot
> 2.  Make := be the assignment token
> 3.  Add a preference to display := using the <- glyph.
> 4.  Add a preference to map keystroke _ into := (which
>     would display according to 3)
>
> Stefan - thanks for opening this one up.  Its been on my
> mind lately, but I was too chicken to write it down.

I like this suggestion best. Keep the arrow, it is the syntax element most
missed by me in the various other Smalltalk systems (have always been
dissapointed that they didn't use the more mnemonic <- instead of :=). But
freeing up the underscore would be nice, not necessarily for
C_STYLE_GLOBALS, but as another character for binary selectors. What would
be really nice too, is if there was just one way of doing assignment, not
both := and the arrow. Make it one, then have it be a user setting so one
enters/displays one or the other. This makes fileout easier too.

--
Travis Griggs (a.k.a. Lord of the Fries)
Member, Fravenic Skreiggser Software Collective
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