Eliminating assignments and variable syntax (accessors)

Stefan Matthias Aust sma at netsurf.de
Mon Aug 2 21:10:59 UTC 1999


>But sometimes we MUST be able to articulate precisely this function.

Two possible solutions....

1) Use a notation of special accessor primitives. For example

instvar
  <primitive: read>

instvar: anObject
  <primitive: write>

People don't have to look into these accessors at all. The browser can even
suppress them.  This should be very easy to implement. Actually, I think,
the current compiler already detects accessor methods and marks them as
special.

2) Use a different syntax. For example

instvar
  #<instvar>

instvar: anObject
  #<instvar> := anObject

To omit this ugliness, the system could automagically provide a set of
basicInstvar and basicInstvar: methods for direct access which could be
called if you want to overwrite the normal methods.
--
Stefan Matthias Aust  //  Bevor wir fallen, fallen wir lieber auf.





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