[squeak-dev] Re: Number readFrom: can we remove some "accidental"features

Eliot Miranda eliot.miranda at gmail.com
Mon Sep 1 20:32:54 UTC 2008


I feel very strongly that . as a statement separator *must* be followed with
at least one whitespace character and that the ramar should reflect this.
 But I know some people disagree strongly.  If I were designing a successor
language to smalltalk I would add this to the syntax.  The argument fort me
is one of readability and flexibility.  I don't see 1 foo.2 bar.3 baz as
readable.    1 foo.
    2 bar.
    3 baz
is much more readable.  Further, being able to use . in literal symbols is
nice.  The Borning/Ingalls multiple inheritance system used this feature so
that one could say e.g.
    self SomeSuperclass.selector
to indicate one wanted to use the implementation inherited from
SomeSuperclass, instead of using the potentially ambiguous super.

So by requiring the statement separator to be a period and one or more
whitespace characters the ambiguity disappears, and .2 could be legal
Smalltalk syntax.

On Sun, Aug 31, 2008 at 2:33 PM, Alejandro F. Reimondo <
aleReimondo at smalltalking.net> wrote:

> Hi!
>
>  { 0.2.3.4.5.6 } printString '#(0.2 3.4 5.6)'
>>>
>>
> Under my eyes, the problem is related with
> the non-smalltalk syntax of braces...
> The problem is a side effect of queueing
> sentences in a pseudo-array notation
> (remove the braces and the ambiguity
> vanishes).
>
> IMO, all said to non-st numeric notation is
> correct, and the same work (of remotion)
> must be done on {....} syntax.
> The same is applicable to ifNil:... and friends
> because it promote the idea (in newbies) that
> it is better to write faster...
>
> cheers,
> Ale.
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "nicolas cellier" <ncellier at ifrance.com
> >
> To: <squeak-dev at lists.squeakfoundation.org>
> Sent: Sunday, August 31, 2008 4:12 PM
> Subject: [squeak-dev] Re: Number readFrom: can we remove some
> "accidental"features
>
>
>
>  Igor Stasenko a écrit :
>>
>>> 2008/8/31 Stéphane Rollandin <lecteur at zogotounga.net>:
>>>
>>>> Igor Stasenko a écrit :
>>>>
>>>>> My guess it can stay, but only as separate helper method, which reads
>>>>> a numbers and expecting non-smalltalk syntax.
>>>>>
>>>> yes, useful for end-user input in numerical applications.
>>>> we could spare them the .2 = 2 experience...
>>>>
>>>>
>>> Btw, everyone is content with such ambigility?
>>>
>>> { 0.2.3.4.5.6 } printString '#(0.2 3.4 5.6)'
>>>
>>>
>> Yes funny.
>> Guess in which language you can evaluate
>>
>> -3r=3r-.-3r-=3r
>>
>> No, it is not /etc/printcap.
>> That's why Stef (Ducasse) asked for cleanup I guess.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>
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