Thanks for both of your answers,

Joshua

On Tue, Jun 24, 2003 at 02:16:53AM +0300, Lex Spoon wrote:
> Yoshiki.Ohshima at acm.org wrote:
> >   Josh,
> > 
> > > What are the semantics of #clone?  Object>>clone has no method
> > > comment.  How is it different from the intended meaning of
> > > #shallowCopy?
> > 
> >   I guess some other people have better ansser, but for me, #clone is
> > ensured to be more primitive and faster.  Since it doesn't nil-out or
> > zero-out the newly created object, it is faster for objects like
> > Bitmap.  In the other words, #clone is thin layer on the primitive,
> > while #shallowCopy has more flexibility to do something different.
> > 
> > # I somehow am feeling that #clone is added later, in 2.x days.
> > 
> 
> I have thought of it as slightly more primitive, too.  A shallow copy of
> an OrderedCollection, for example, might copy slightly more deeply than
> a #clone would (hmm, and that's what it does).
> 
> Right now, Squeak's clone does do as much as nil out the variables --
> it's in fact the same primitive as the default shallowCopy.  This seems
> like a good idea for Squeak, where safety is a higher priority than
> speed.
> 
> Lex