[squeak-dev] Selectors with underscores

Alan Knight knight at acm.org
Fri Mar 12 15:58:58 UTC 2010


+1

I note that VisualWorks, and I think various other Smalltalks have supported the ability to use underscores in selectors for many years, but it is quite rare to see them. 

At 10:31 AM 2010-03-12, Torsten Bergmann wrote:
>Hi Sam,
>
>>Supporting underscores in selectors makes a significant change to how the
>>code looks to the eyes
>>You can argue its not that important, or folks should just change and 
>>enjoy it, but it does impact readability.
>
>You seem to miss my point here. I AGREE with you regarding readability
> - since I like well written Smalltalk code in the same way you like it. 
>
>A #fooBar is always better than a #foo_Bar! Nothing said about it -
>I have no beard but appreciate reading/writing clean Smalltalk 
> code since 1994...
>
>
>BUT:
>
>CALL_ME_BACK: is also more readable than CALLMEBACK in an 
>FFI callback, especially when the C function has the same name
>
>The other Smalltalks allowed to use underscores in selectors 
>and still have well written and readable Smalltalk methods. 
>    
>You may argue that this is due to their commercial nature -
>but I believe it's because Smalltalk people really use this 
>feature carefully.
>     
>I think you fear that after introducing this change anybody 
>is instantly_switching_to_writing_ALL_its_method_selectors_with_underscores
>- which I just doubt! 
>
>Therefore I would like to go the way Bert nicely described as:
>  Supporting them: +1
>  Using them: -1
>
>It's an interesting discussion - I should have read the warning in 
>Ians original changeset more clearly. It said:
>
>  "Use of this changeset has been officially condemned by the 
>   Independent Board of Syntactical Aesthetics for Squeak."  :)
>
>>Just 2r11 from a "legacy" Smalltalker who, yes, still uses MVC, albeit
>>running in parallel in a custom VM on a 64-core Tilera chip.  ;-)
>
>How is the project going, havent heard from it since 2008?
>
>></previous_post_eaten_by_LotusNotes>
>
>Since Notes-UI is written in Java I think underscores are OK here
>
>Bye
>T.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>-- 
>GRATIS für alle GMX-Mitglieder: Die maxdome Movie-FLAT!
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--
Alan Knight [|], Engineering Manager, Cincom Smalltalk
knight at acm.org
aknight at cincom.com
http://www.cincom.com/smalltalk
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