On Apr 29, 2007, at 10:03 AM, tim Rowledge wrote:

> Assigning some new object to the tag used for a parameter is  
> confusing and pointless because it can have no effect outside the  
> local context despite *looking like* it might replace the object to  
> someone not familiar. To prevent that confusion, the compiler  
> prevents the assignment.

Interesting. As far as I can tell, you're the only poster in this  
thread that thinks assigning to a parameter name implies that the  
parameter was passed by reference. Lukas was just complaining that  
parameter slots are read-only, and giving examples of cases where it  
would be nice to be able to write to them. I occasionally feel this  
way too - making parameters different from other temps feels  
arbitrarily inconsistent.

  I wonder if this is a sign of changing times. After all,  
"confusion" is a mismatch between expectations and reality. Perhaps  
were seeing a change in expectations? Back in the days of yore,  
people were coming to Smalltalk from low-level languages where it was  
possible to pass pointers around, and returning a value through a  
pass-by-reference parameter was a common idiom. These days, people  
who are interested in Smalltalk are probably coming from other  
dynamic languages where that's not possible, and treating parameters  
as just another temp feels natural.

Personally, I think it would be nice to be able to write to parameter  
slots, but it's not worth breaking compatibility with other Smalltalks.

Colin