Maurice and Travis --

Dan Ingalls and I (seperately) were very taken with parts of APL in our
youth, and. over the years, have been quite excited at the possibilities
that polymorphism brings to this kind of generalization of collections. It
is now time to take another pass at the algebraic roots of
Smalltalk/Squeak. Suggestions please -- the best kind are not so much
add-ons, but comprehensive schemes that are both powerful, readable, and
help users think ...

Cheers,

Alan

------

At 7:36 AM -0000 8/26/98, Maurice Rabb wrote:
>>Scary to have your own quotes, long forgotten, dredged up out of the dust.
>>I feel
>>like Bill (Gates or Clinton, take your pick). What continues to gnaw at
>>brain is
>>what you sum up so well with the statement
>>
>
>I regret my inapropriate relationship with my Squeak archives. :-)
>Seriously, I didn't mean to use your quote as a kidney punch.  I just
>though your comments were so apropos.  The tough questions are definitely
>cyclical.  Unfortunately, the lousy ones (ala C++ vs Smalltalk) repeat as
>well.
>
>
>>For a while now, we've had a ?framework? in VisualWorks that I've thought
>>about
>>porting over to Squeak and releasing, but I've always feared the flame about
>>diluting protocols. But tonight, I'm coming out. :)
>
>[munch]
>
>>blow my friends and teachers away. I would just whip up little expressions:
>>
>>#((1 2 3 4 5) + #(6 7 8 9 10) * 4) sum
>>
>
>Hmmm, that looks pretty cool and compelling to me.
>
>
>>Maybe the arithmetic protocol is one that dilutes better.
>
>
>This reminds me of the "is Point a Magnitude or not" discussion.
>
>Your comments have given me the courage to add the arithmetic protocols I
>really want to Rectangle.  BTW, is Squeak arithmetic now using some sort of
>hybrid between double dispatch and coercion?  What is the advantage?  It
>used to use straight coercion, right?  Travis are you still using your DD
>changeSet?
>
>--Maurice
>
>---------------------------------------------------------------------------
>  Maurice Rabb    773.281.6003    Stono Technologies, LLC    Chicago, USA