Charles,
Im a beginner myself, but i think i know the answer to this one... ;)
As far as i know every method returns a value. If you do not explicitly return a value ^self is returned.
BTW i love this list, and ive learned very much already from it. Keep up the good work all!
- Jeroen
"Charles D Hixson" charleshixsn@earthlink.net wrote in message news:446025AD.1010407@earthlink.net...
I know that in some languages this matters, and in others it doesn't. E.g., in C if you return a value, the temporary must always be stored when the function is called, but in other languages it can be ignored, and in some languages if you don't intentionally return a value, the system will automatically create a value (usually nil) to return for you.
Eiffel make a big deal about separating Commands from Queries, with very strict rules about which kinds of routines can do what kind of things.
Presumably Squeak (and Smalltalk) is flexible here...but I haven't seen it documented anywhere. (Also, can anyone recommend a good tutorial that isn't graphics based? What I want to do right now is really more text oriented.) I got the two Mark Guzdial books, but that doesn't really cover much in any depth.