On 10 May 2012 14:12, H. Hirzel <hannes.hirzel at gmail.com> wrote:
> Thanks for the link Bert,
>
> <citation>
> David N. Smith wrote:
> Curly braces are currently used in Squeak to construct
> runtime-evaluated collections
> </citation>.
>
> The question is -- is there some more documentation than just some
> clippings from an email correspondence.
>
> If I understand you correctly people 'forgot' to take them out and so
> this syntax stayed.
>
> Is it used much?

I use {} syntax all the time: just this morning I wrote {x. y. z.}
instead of Array with: x with: y with: z.

As someone who also uses Ruby and Python, I understand people's desire
to change the syntax because both those languages use {}s to indicate
a (runtime evaluated) _dictionary_. As someone who uses {} a lot, I
don't particularly want to rewrite all my code to support the New
Approved Way, but I guess I'd bite the bullet if I had to. But then I
do want a replacement for {}.

frank

> Would it be possible to deprecate this usage and
>
> reuse the syntax for  implementing literal dictionaries 'JSON style'?
>
> --Hannes
>
> On 5/10/12, Bert Freudenberg <bert at freudenbergs.de> wrote:
>>
>> On 10.05.2012, at 13:25, H. Hirzel wrote:
>>
>>> On 5/10/12, Levente Uzonyi <leves at elte.hu> wrote:
>>>> So it's not about dynamic arrays, but arrays created with the brace
>>>> syntax. And yes, that was introduced in Squeak.
>>>
>>> Any idea when and for which reason?
>>
>> Dan Ingalls, 1997: "Larry Tesler added the Curly Brace construct to Apple
>> Smalltalk back around 1985, and there it sat in Apple's APDA (Apple
>> Programmer and Developer Association) Smalltalk release for about a decade.
>> Then we resurrected that image as the basis of Squeak, and I've never
>> bothered to tear it out."
>>
>> More at
>> http://www.cc.gatech.edu/fac/mark.guzdial/squeak/notes/curlybraces.html
>>
>> - Bert -
>>
>>
>>
>