[squeak-dev] Re: SmalltalkImage current vs. Smalltalk
Andreas Raab
andreas.raab at gmx.de
Wed Mar 3 02:41:22 UTC 2010
Folks -
That response was most definitely not what I had expected :-) I thought
this was going to be a quick round of -1 or +1 instead lots of
discussions about interesting forward-looking issues.
However, what I'm after in this round is not "how to make things better"
but rather how to most effectively undo what got broken before. The
current separation into SystemDictionary and SmalltalkImage is
unmotivated and pointless. However, regardless of what we may end up in
the future there is no doubt that there's a *lot* of code out there that
will be using either Smalltalk or SmalltalkImage current. This is the
problem that I'm trying to address here, no more, no less.
Consequently I'm going to completely ignore any forward-looking
proposals and simply state that the current count is 3 votes for the
first variant (Phil, David, Bert) and 1 vote for the second variant
(Igor). This isn't the final tally but if you care about the
compatibility issues raised here please be specific and state your
preference for the options listed below rather than making another
forward-looking proposal that I have no intention to implement for this
round.
Cheers,
- Andreas
On 3/1/2010 8:08 PM, Andreas Raab wrote:
> Folks -
>
> I was just trying to load some other code and once too many I got bitten
> by this silly SmalltalkImage current vs. Smalltalk stuff, so I'll fix it
> now. The only question is which way. There are two alternatives which
> achieve the goal of "SmalltalkImage current == Smalltalk":
>
> 1) The Cuis variant: Move all the code back to SystemDictionary;
> implement SmalltalkImage current as ^Smalltalk.
>
> Pro: Compatible with Cuis.
> Con: Lack of separation of concerns.
>
> 2) The inverse Cuis variant: Move all the code from SystemDictionary to
> SmalltalkImage; add a 'globals' variable (populated by an instance of
> SystemDictionary) and convert everything roughly like this:
>
> SmalltalkImage current globals: Smalltalk.
> Smalltalk := SmalltalkImage current.
>
> Pro: Better separation of concerns.
> Con: Different from Cuis.
>
> I really don't care which way we do it; all I want is to get out of the
> mess we've created by introducing "SmalltalkImage current".
>
> If you have an opinion, voice it, otherwise I'll just pick one.
>
> Cheers,
> - Andreas
>
>
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