2009/11/24 Igor Stasenko <siguctua at gmail.com>:
> 2009/11/24 Andreas Raab <andreas.raab at gmx.de>:
>> Hi -
>>
>> Here is a question: Does anyone know how much effort it would be to compile
>> the brace array construct down to a literal array if it only contains static
>> elements? This would allow us to use {} consistently even in places where
>> we'd otherwise use #(). I'm not sure if it's worth it but I dislike the
>> asymmetry in literal arrays that symbols aren't prefixed by #symbol and if
>> we'd be able to compile {} statically where that's possible we could
>> completely and consistently replace all uses of #() by {}.
>>
>> Thoughts?
>>
>
> There's one thing, which still different for these two constructs,
> even if all elements can be evaluated at compile time.
> The {} array is constructed at run time, so one may expect that it is
> mutable, while arrays defined using #() not.
>
> I.e. things like:
>
> myArray := #(1 3 4 2) sort.
>
> should lead to error , while
>
> myArray := {1. 3. 4. 2. } sort.
>
> not.
> From this point, i think compiling {} arrays statically may lead to
> unwanted behavior later, when we could have an immutable objects in
> Squeak.
> But of course, if we leave things as they are (no immutability), then
> any literal arrays can be modified, which makes no difference between
> those two, except from syntax.
>

oops.. there still will be difference, because {} arrays constructed
each time we run the code,
 while #() constructed at compile time. And since Squeak can't offer
us the immutability guards,
one of the solution may to use {} syntax to ensure that produced array
will always have same elements as
written in code.

>> Cheers,
>>  - Andreas
>
>
> --
> Best regards,
> Igor Stasenko AKA sig.
>



-- 
Best regards,
Igor Stasenko AKA sig.