Hi Bert!

Bert Freudenberg <bert at impara.de> wrote:
> Am 15.04.2004 um 01:23 schrieb goran.krampe at bluefish.se:
> 
> > 	(Smalltalk at: #Fruits::Apple) == ((Smalltalk at: #Fruits) at: #Apple)
> >
> > The left hand shows that SystemDictionary has some "compatibility
> > behaviour" making it seem as if the qualified names are all accessible
> > "flat" in Smalltalk, which they aren't. It will do a two step lookup
> > like the right hand shows.
> >
> > 	((Smalltalk at: #Fruits) at: #Apple) == Fruits::Apple
> >
> > Here the right hand shows that Scanner/Parser has been augmented to
> > properly handle qualified names (with a little help from Andreas).
> 
> Does that mean I can not enumerate all classes in the system by looking 
> at the entries in Smalltalk?

I have tried to make SystemDictionary keep the appearance up. :) But I
am still digging through the image to make sure it is tight. For
example, there are still allClasses, allClassesDo:, classNames (giving
qualified names) etc.

> What about the invariant
> 
> 	(Smalltalk at: aClass name) == aClass
>
> If this does not hold, many tools would have to be made 
> namespace-aware.

Yes, I know - but this holds:

	(aClass environment at: aClass name) == aClass

> This can be elegantly avoided when using the 
> fully-qualified name as actual class name. I thought your original 
> proposal did this?

Yes. :) But I got annoyed with having classes both in Smalltalk and in
the Namespace instances - redundance makes me itch. Craig also
criticized me for "misusing" the name instvar in Class. :)

If this turns out to be too hard - we can always back down to that
solution. I am not sure yet. It would be so very, very nice to see a
Smalltalk with just about 30 entries. :) Anyway, it is a "small problem"
all in all I think. Using qualified names for classes would also force
us to go through a lot of tools because you don't want to see the
qualified names in the browsers all the time.

On the other hand I am right now a bit stuck on SystemOrganization
because it just associates the class name with a single category. So
this breaks. Earlier today I created Fruits::Orange and Test::Orange in
two different categories and then of course one of them "disappeared" in
the Browser. :) And having them both in the same category would make the
class listing pretty confusing without qualification...

Well, I appreciate all ideas. :)

> - Bert -

regards, Göran