ANSI Compatibility

Lex Spoon lex at cc.gatech.edu
Tue Jun 10 07:19:22 UTC 2003


Alain Fischer <mailinglist.fischer at bluewin.ch> wrote:
> What is your feeling about including  the ANSI Compatibility package
> in the 3.6 or perhaps 3.7 base image. It is as less possible invasive  
> for the system.
> 

I think it should go in, and I've thought so for a long time.  People
have been afraid that it changes fundamental things.  In fact, it mostly
adds new classes and methods.  I've never had trouble with it, despite
loading it all the time.

It is good to be compatible if there is no reason not to, and the ANSI
standard is quite mild in its requirements.  Furthermore, the stuff in
there tends to be pretty good -- it's been thought out by *very*
experienced Smalltalkers.  I especially like the DateAndTime and
Duration classes (classes that are often reimplemented by Squeak people,
but not as well).

The main issue to consider is that there will be multiple ways to do
some things and thus that there will be some cruft.  However, this can
be weeded out later, and furthermore, anyone who wants to port a
Smalltalk program to Squeak is going to want to use the ANSI variations,
anyway.  

Compatibility is nice, there is no conceptual cost to it, and the risks
are small.  We should put it in and be done with it.

Lex



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