Should every kernel class x provide support for (x new) printString and (x new) hash

Klaus D. Witzel klaus.witzel at cobss.com
Sun Jan 21 15:46:10 UTC 2007


Hi Ralph,

I have nothing to say against your arguments :) just asked if it is  
possibile to be more polite to potential converts when they begin using a  
workspace :)

OTOH, for (Object new), you might try

- http://www.google.com/search?q=smalltalk+%22object+new%22

to see the tip of the iceberg (keeping in mind that google still does not  
crawl each and every piece of publicly available Smalltalk code).

/Klaus

On Sun, 21 Jan 2007 16:23:09 +0100, Ralph Johnson wrote:

>> Funny, (Object new) doesn't have such problems. So, would you say that
>> about "Object new", too. I doubt, because almost every Smalltalk pro  
>> does
>> so ;-)
>
> Object has no abstract methods, but it is still an abstract class, and
> I never make instances of it.  i consider it a hack to do so, an
> amusing hack, but a hack nevertheless.  I have been teaching that to
> my students for twenty years, and I do not believe that almost every
> Smalltalk pro makes instances of Object.
>
> Smalltalk does not have static type-checking.  The compiler does not
> stop you from doing stupid things.
>
> An abstract class is a class that you do not instantiate, but use only
> as a superclass.  Sometimes it is hard to tell whether a class is
> abstract, but Collection says it in its comment, and it has a
> #subclassResponsibility method.
>
> -Ralph Johnson
>
>





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