On 9/5/07, Blake <blake at kingdomrpg.com> wrote:
> On Wed, 05 Sep 2007 10:19:52 -0700, tim Rowledge <tim at rowledge.org> wrote:
>
> What's the point of having a context if you don't use it?

Context means having to keep extra things in your head and it makes
the code more complex.  Didn't the Perl experiment teach you anything?
;)

>
>         self position: (self position + newPos - self center) asIntegerPoint.
>
> versus:
>
>         position: (position + newPos - center) asIntegerPoint
>
> Yes. I see how that's not only clunky and confusing BUT tasteless. Worse
> than combining plaid with stripes.

Clunky and confusing?  It's uniform and obvious for me.  An object
always receives a message in every case.  No stupid special cases to
remember.  But if you don't like Smalltalk there are thousands of
other languages out there to try, no need to torture yourself with
this one you find so ugly.

> Here's another horrid example from the Wiki entry on the abomination known
> as "Self":
>
>         valid: base bottom between: ligature bottom + height And: base top /
> scale factor.
>
> and here we see the oh-so-elegant improvements ST-80 makes:
>
>         valid := self base bottom between: self ligature bottom + self height
> and: self base top / self scale factor.
>
> Mmmmmm. =Tasteful=!

You also don't like Self, one of the most important languages for
research of our time?  Really, what is it you like about Smalltalk?
The IDE?  You can get most of that with Java these days, and nearly
everything with Lisp.