<!doctype html public "-//W3C//DTD W3 HTML//EN">
<html><head><style type="text/css"><!--
blockquote, dl, ul, ol, li { padding-top: 0 ; padding-bottom: 0 }
--></style><title>Re: Morph>>Delete</title></head><body>
<div>Lots of appearance things were nicer before the Smalltalk-80
release efforts. I wasn't there at the time, but I think they decided
(probably rightly) to use the existing character set in the outside
world. And, today, it would be nice to do something like your
suggestion (maybe a different one) and many other cosmetic
possibilities, but several folks have pointed out that even a slight
deviation from unadorned text is not supported by all email clients
(sigh).</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Cheers,</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Alan</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>-----</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>At 4:30 PM -0800 12/4/03, Andrew P. Black wrote:</div>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>Aaron J Reichow wrote:<br>
><br>
> > > 2. The format for specifying a message is
Class>>#message ; that is your<br>
> > > message should have read Morph>>#delete.<br>
> ><br>
> > Really? I use #delete to talk about the message, but
Morph>>delete to<br>
> > talk about a particular method.<br>
><br>
> The convention is to use the #. It's kind of neat
actually- do a<br>
> print-it on "Morph>>#delete" in a workspace- the
CompiledMethod for that<br>
> method is returned. #delete can be passed (a symbol), and
delete cannot.<br>
<br>
Yes, "Morph>>#delete" is a valid Smalltalk expression
and</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>"Morph>>delete" is
not.</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><br></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>I've always found the # symbol to be a
blot on the otherwise elegant syntax of Smalltalk. Its a bit
surprising to me that Smalltalk didn't adopt a different convention,
such as typing all symbols in bold face. delete would be an
identifier reference, whereas<b> delete</b> would be a symbol,
and</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite> <x-tab>
</x-tab>myMorph<b> delete</b></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>would send the message<b> delete</b> to
the object bound to myMorph.</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><br></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>However, I'm about 25 years too late in
proposing this, so I don't expect that it will be adopted real soon
now.</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><br></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite><x-tab>
</x-tab>Andrew</blockquote>
<div><br></div>
<div><br></div>
<x-sigsep><pre>--
</pre></x-sigsep>
</body>
</html>