[squeak-dev] Questions about parsing and orthogonal constructs....

Dave Raymer dave.raymer at gmail.com
Mon Nov 1 15:44:19 UTC 2010


I would recommend you start with one of the free Smalltalk books accessible from
here: http://stephane.ducasse.free.fr/FreeBooks.html

I would counsel that "Squeak by Example" would be a great place for you start.

The Smalltalk compiler in Squeak can parse empty methods successfully; Smalltalk 
does not have functions; methods are defined relative to an object, and cannot have
methods inside them, but they can have blocks; etc.  Smalltalk is deceptively complex 
in its simplicity.  A Smalltalk grammar is extremely simple, and Smalltalk interpreters
have been developed that are less than 2k lines of C code.

In Smalltalk, everything, and I mean everything is an object; you'll need to do a 
paradigm switch to be able to make the most of the power offered by the Simplicity
in Smalltalk.

regards,

Dave

On Nov 1, 2010, at 10:35 AM, gi.joe wrote:

> 
> Hello everyone. I'm new to Squeak, and I chose to do a research paper for
> school on it. I have a few questions about the language. My first question
> is what components in Squeak can be successfully parsed by the compiler
> without necessarily creating a full program. For example, can a blank method
> be created? Create variables without using them? etc.
> 
> My second question is what constructs in the language are NOT orthogonal.
> I'm not sure if there is a different term for this, but basically it means
> what constructs cannot be used within a construct of the same type. For
> example, can you use a function within a function?
> 
> If any help can be provided, I would greatly appreciate it. Some examples
> and references to the ANSI Smalltalk Reference Manual would be much
> appreciated as well. I was trying to find the ansers in the ANSI manual
> haven't had much luck.
> -- 
> View this message in context: http://forum.world.st/Questions-about-parsing-and-orthogonal-constructs-tp3022339p3022339.html
> Sent from the Squeak - Dev mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
> 

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