On 25/09/2012 19:35, Benoit St-Jean wrote:
On 25/09/2012 2:31 PM, Hernán Morales Durand wrote:
Hi folks, I am rewriting packages to be compatible or more portable between Smalltalks. Code Critics gives the following information on my packages:
- #cr, #crlf, #lf, #space, #tab, #findTokens:, ... are not part of the
ANSI string protocol.
#cr and #lf are not part of the ANSI stream protocol.
The ANSI standard does not support #asInteger and #asString on Object.
Some collection methods are not ANSI compatible: #pairsDo:,
#collect:thenDo:, #reject:thenDo:, #detectSum:, #valuesDo:, #keysSortedSafely, #new:withAll:, etc.
Does anyone have an idea on how to transform those sends to be ANSI compatible?
Hi Hernan,
I don't think being ANSI-compatible should be a goal in any case. You won't find any Smalltalk flavor (commercial or Open Source) that is fully ANSI-compatible. All vendors have their extensions/exceptions/versions. Just have a look at Glorp to convince yourself of differences between Smalltalk implementations!
But if your goal is portability, I'd say you should start by having your code compatible with VAST, VW, Dolphin & Squeak. You'll probably cover most of other Smalltalks variants by doing so. The ANSI standard was never, to my knowledge, 100% fully respected by any Smalltalk vendor. Most of them tried to but none of them implemented it with 100% compliance. In other words, just do your best at satisfying compatibility with the most vendors.
Hi Benoit,
Just for the record :) I've worked with a custom implementation of Smalltalk which was 100% tested ANSI-compatible. It was in 2004 and unfortunately the project never saw the light except for our customer. However I wasn't in the team responsible for the ANSI compliance, but for the testing. It was called "Chachara Smalltalk" and it has some interesting features at that time: No object table, compacting generational GC with variable # of generations, C++ VM with reified ST meta-model, etc. You may see a screenshot here:
http://www.screencast.com/t/PGm5VPr0
that proves nothing, but sometimes it's nice to see screenshots.
This one uses Xtreams, the other one Nautilus browser or Zinc, the other one starts Array indices at 1, this other one does this, the other one does that, one uses Smalltalk while the other uses SmalltalkImage, etc.
Yes, but the goal of the standard is to provide an ideal protocol of behaviors. Globals are only defined if they conform a protocol. UI, Database and Graphics were unspecified until Smalltalk implementations converge... which could be never.
Unfortunately, we're not in the Java world. You'll eventually need a Bundle/Application/Project/Package named "Portability" just like everyone else...
I'm afraid so... I wonder what's the status of Grease. Any Seasider reading?
Cheers,
Hernán
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