Parsing Numbers

Blake blake at kingdomrpg.com
Tue Sep 20 22:14:47 UTC 2005


On Tue, 20 Sep 2005 13:35:23 -0700, <goran at krampe.se> wrote:

> Hi all!
>
> "Leandro Caniglia" <caniglia at dm.uba.ar> wrote:
>> As a mathematician (I have a PhD in Mathematics) it didn't took me 20  
>> years
>> either to think that Smalltalk precedence is by far much better than
>> conventional math precedence. The simplicity and elegance of the uniform
>> metaphor became apparent from the very  beginning.
>
> Yes, the simple rules is IMHO what makes it easy to write and parse
> Smalltalk code and actually get it "right" the first time.
> I never got even a part of the rules in C/C++ into my head. :)
>
> The sacrifice of mathematical "correctness" is IMO a small price to pay
> for such clarity that Smalltalk has.

I'd add that I'm not sure that programming (particularly with Smalltalk)  
is an especially mathematical process, any more than engineering or other  
crafts. (Though a mathematician should have tools available in Squeak for  
evaluating formulae by his rules. Don't such things exist?)



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