Fear and loathing of the "perlification" of Smalltalk

tim Rowledge tim at rowledge.org
Wed Sep 5 17:19:52 UTC 2007


On 5-Sep-07, at 1:24 AM, Blake wrote:
> The constant references to "self" is one of the clunkier things  
> about Smalltalk, in my view,

Gronk? What is clunky about a uniform, consistent syntax that has us
a) name the recipient
b) name the message to send to it
c) name any parameters to include with the message
Having a special case that lets you leave out the recipient if it is  
'self' would be clunky, confusing and tasteless.

> and is inconsistent to boot (you have to use self to access methods  
> but not fields?).
You can of course use messages to access instvars. It wouldn't be  
terribly difficult to make the compiler require it. I think it would  
be going a bit far, personally - using accessor messages sounds nice  
until you remember that they expose information you might prefer to  
keep private. If anyone has a good solid idea for proper private  
methods I'd be very interested.

tim
--
tim Rowledge; tim at rowledge.org; http://www.rowledge.org/tim
"How many Grogs does it take to change a lightbulb?" "One. Something  
with manipulatory appendages will be along eventually."





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