The standard does *not* support - a removeAll: a - [was: Re: [BUG] Collection>>removeAll:]

Richard A. O'Keefe ok at cs.otago.ac.nz
Fri Sep 6 02:40:33 UTC 2002


"Andrew C. Greenberg" <werdna at mucow.com>
does his level best to trash me without actually addressing the
substantive points.
	Of course not.  While such "talk-reasoning" manifests impressive 
	advocacy skills --Richard writes and argues well-- it doesn't actually 
	prove anything one way or the other.  Richard must begin with the 
	principles upon which we all agree,

The principles upon which we all agree, to this point,
surely include "if a programmer explicitly writes an iteration,
then it is THAT programmer's responsibility to ensure that the
collection iterated over is not changed."

This principle was flagrantly violated by the example we're discussing.

Note that my response did NOT depend on the assumption that it was
*right* to fix #removeAll:.  No, the argument to which I was responding
really truly genuinely does have the form

    A method call should not be made to give sensible answers
    in a boundary case because someone might replace a then-
    working call to that method with different code that doesn't
    work.

Can we take it as read that Andrew C. Greenberg is a fine person
who has made far more substantial contributions to the Squeak
community than I am ever likely to?  Can we take it as read that
his reputation stands so very high that it doesn't need boosting
by ad hominem attacks like

	if he is to convince us of anything 
	-- he should not begin with an argument of the form "I am right, 
	therefore I am right (slightly restated)."
	
No, not slightly restated, but twisted beyond recognition.	
	
Remember, what I wrote was not concern with the question about what
should be done to #removeAll:, but with the form of a particular
argument.  That argument was and remains invalid, and not all
Greenberg's attacks on me can make it otherwise.



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