[squeak-dev] Smalltalk at: #Foo - needs clarification

Fernando olivero fernando.olivero at usi.ch
Wed Oct 6 15:30:44 UTC 2010


On Oct 6, 2010, at 4:36 PM, stephane ducasse wrote:

> 
> 
>> Hello,
>> 
>> just wanna ask, is this part of API will be deprecated in future?
>> (in Pharo, it put under 'to clean later' category).
>> 
>> And if yes, then what will be correct (dialect-agnostic) way to access globals?
>> 
>> Smalltalk globals at: #Foo ?
>> 
>> I thought that #at: #at:put:  (and some others)
>> historically is a part of Smalltalk protocol, and should stay there to
>> support legacy code and cross-dialect code.
>> 
>> 
>> What you thoughts about it?
> 
> legacy you said! Let us move on. We keep to help people migrating. 
> Now we should avoid it as much as possible even Smalltalk globals at:. It should be more
> 	self class environment at:
> 
> In VisualWorks I'm not sure that Smalltalk at: make sense. 

I've been using: 
	
	 Smalltalk globals classNamed: aString.

IMO It's better from a conceptual view because  
	1. it breaks the  class-symbol binding, 
	2. and a Dictionary-like implementation for lookup.


Fernando


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