Hi Jerome,Igor also replied with comments regarding the proper use of
matrices, so I know now that I must have not been clear in my original mail.
  Apologies for that.
I was not interested in discussing the Matrix protocol, but weather or not
did people consider it useful to add a method that provides the same
functionality as #collect: but without the argument, basically as a method
called #timesCollect: of the Integer class, much in the same fashion as
#timesRepeat:
With this method one could write code that produces the same result as:

(1 to: n) collect: [ :i | random next: m ]

as

n timesCollect: [ random next: m ]

which does not force the user to visibly create the Interval nor to use a
one argument block when the argument is not needed.

My intention, hence, was only to ask if people would consider it a nice to
have method on the Integer class, as a sibling of #timesRepeat:

Cheers



On Thu, May 21, 2009 at 1:11 AM, Jerome Peace
<peace_the_dreamer at yahoo.com>wrote:

>
> Hi Ramiro,
>
>
> >Ramiro Diaz Trepat ramiro at diaztrepat.name
> >Wed May 20 08:01:11 UTC 2009 asks:
> >
> >I have a simple question regarding the use of a proper idiom.I had to
> create
> >a matrix (n X m) of random values and I used a line similar to this one:
> >
> >NMatrix withRows: ((1 to: n) collect: [ :i | random next: m ]).
> >
> >Since Smalltalk is so neat for its collection handling, I obviously did
> not
> >like to write that line.
> >I thought that I did not want to explicitly create the interval, nor use a
> >block that requires an
> >argument that I also don't use.
> >The question, finally, is if there an elegant way of replicating the
> >behaviour of #collect: but
> >without the argument?
> >In my case, I thought it would be great for Integer to have something like
> >#timesCollect:
> >that would allow me to rewrite the line above as:
> >
> >NMatrix withRows: (n timesCollect: [ random next: m ])
> >
> >Does anyone else think that this would be an useful method to have?
>
> In a workspace evaluate:
>
> picker := Random new .
>
> (Matrix rows: 2 columns: 3 ) collect: [ :each | picker next ] .
>
> result:
>
>  a Matrix
> (0.2668126189461036 0.319686627164337 0.973142751014392
>  0.610216298890401 0.905335450966533 0.97292439452043)
>
> You may wish to study the Matrix class and see what else it can do.
> The class is a recent contribution by someone who had a need for it.
>
> Hth,
>
> Yours in curiosity and service, --Jerome Peace
>
>
>
>
>
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