Smalltalk Design Question

Andreas Raab raab at isgnw.cs.Uni-Magdeburg.DE
Tue Jan 27 23:32:45 UTC 1998


> I can understand why static languages are case
> sensitive(e.g. more efficient compiling) but for dynamic languages like
> Smalltallk, I can think of more advantages of being non-case sensitive
> rather than case sensitive.

>From my point of view (I am _not_ one of the "original" smalltalk
designers) it's just the other way around. In a static language you have
all the time you need for compiling and linking and doing case insensitive
comparisons.  Smalltalk, however, does lots of things with its selectors.
You can "perform:" them which is in basically a lookup of the signature. 
In principle, this happens every time a message is sent.  I'd say if the
method lookup takes longer for case-insensitive comparisons this a very
good reason to stay case insensitive. 

Just my thoughts,
  Andreas
-- 
Linear algebra is your friend - Trigonometry is your enemy.
+===== Andreas Raab ============= (raab at isg.cs.uni-magdeburg.de) =====+
I Department of Simulation and Graphics      Phone: +49 391 671 8065  I
I University of Magdeburg, Germany           Fax:   +49 391 671 1164  I
+=============< http://isgwww.cs.uni-magdeburg.de/~raab >=============+





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