30 Jul
2008
30 Jul
'08
12:24 a.m.
Eliot Miranda wrote:
> Wouldn't that break a lot of code? Like anything that does WriteStream > on a String like #streamContents: ? > No, unless you're doing WriteStream on: '' which you should not do anyway. Normal Strings (those that are created with #new: or with copying) are mutable, just as they are now. In general, any code that breaks when the immutability of literals is ensured by the VM was broken to begin with...+1.
Its trivial to fix such code. e.g. if you have (ReadWriteStream with: 'The date is ') print: Date today; contents you simply change it to (ReadWriteStream with: 'The date is ' copy) print: Date today; contents and you're done.
Some developers in the VW community complained when we introduced immutability in 2002 about exactly these cases. But the fuss soon died down as people realised that indeed their code was safer with the change.
I can confirm that. Changes to the existing code due to the immutability were indeed rare. In my case mostly changing WriteStrean on: '' to WriteStream on: String new.
Best regards JAnko
--
Janko Mivšek
AIDA/Web
Smalltalk Web Application Server
http://www.aidaweb.si