[BUG]Collection>>removeAll:

Ralph Johnson johnson at cs.uiuc.edu
Wed Aug 21 13:25:03 UTC 2002


>From: "Richard A. O'Keefe" <ok at cs.otago.ac.nz>

>	I agree with David Griswold.  Smalltalk programmers need to know enough
>	about collections to know that  aColl removeAll: aColl is problematic.
>	
>	Trying to make this work will just make things too complex.
		
>But it DIDN'T.  The fix is DEAD SIMPLE.  That's the point, really.

>Arguments about there being infinitely many ways for Squeak to break
>are a little bit dishonest when applied to a bug that is so trivially
>easy to fix.

But I think your "dead simple" fix is a horrible hack.  I do things
like that sometimes, but always think it is something I should
eliminate.  It is just a patch for a special case, and one special
case builds on another until the system is impossible to understand.

I think we have a culture clash here.  I'm not sure just what the
problem is, but when each side thinks that the other's model of
elegant simplicity is a horrible hack, something interesting is at
work.

-Ralph Johnson



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