At 8:45 PM -0800 3/15/99, Dan Ingalls wrote:
>I couldn't care less about _, except that I have heard a lot of reasons
>*from people on this list* for wanting to use _ as a normal character and
>not for assignment.
>
>What I said above means we won't do it right away, not we're planning to
>do it soon.  Jeesh.


Pardon, but the use of _ for assignment doesn't prevent its use in
selectors, and in symbols in general.  (The notable exception is the single
#_ to prevent ambiguity with assignment.)

At his web page, Stefan Matthias Aust has a nice filein that allows this:


'From Squeak 2.3 beta of Nov 25, 1998 on 31 December 1998 at 12:56:37 pm'!
"Change Set:		UnderscoreInSelectorsPatch
Date:			31 December 1998
Author:			Stefan Matthias Aust (sma at kiel.netsurf.de)

Optionally switch the meaning of _ (Underscore character).
Use

	Scanner newSyntax: true

to allow '_' in selectors and quoted symbols. For compatibility,
a single '_' is still taken as the assignment operator."!




Anything this trivial that inspires this much emotion is obviously a
religious issue.  It seems Andres' suggestion goes toward solving this
dilemma.

At 11:44 AM -0300 3/16/99, Andres Valloud wrote:
>Hi.
>
>1. What about filing out as normal with _ replaced with :=, and filing in with
>:= replaced with _?
>

I would modify his idea a bit, and suggest an assignment symbol preference.
It would cause both fileins and fileouts to replace _ as :=, but only if
desired.

I really don't see a conflict between the left arrow display glyph and _.
Matter of fact, I like _ so much, I wouldn't care if Squeak itself didn't
perform the visual mapping.  I suspect other _ huggers feel the same way.

Its funny how its the tiniest things that make something endearing, or
annoying.


>
>Was there anything else of interest in those messages?
>
>	- Dan

Sorry for the digression ... return to hardcore Squeaking. ;-)

--Maurice



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  Maurice Rabb    773.281.6003    Stono Technologies, LLC    Chicago, USA