[squeak-dev] Re: terse Object concatenation

Stéphane Rollandin lecteur at zogotounga.net
Fri Sep 24 10:19:47 UTC 2010


>  Is some new syntax to write
> arrays. This gives the promise that can be used everywhere without
> adverse effects (like the ones others have highlighted), with uniformity
> in its usage and generally a good practice in smalltalk.

Exactly. This is a very good summary of why I wouldn't like the proposal 
to be included in the trunk.


Now about the term "concatenation": the proposal is not about 
concatenation at all, it is about collection making.

Concatenation of two objects leads to another object of more or less the 
same kind; it does not lead to a collection of the two initial objects. 
In Squeak #, is used for concatenation, braces for forming a collection 
out of objects.

These are two very different things; the proposal is reifying a 
confusion between them, effectively saying that in some unclear way 
anObject is anObject and {anObject} at the same time.

Would the proposal be accepted, such a confusion would potentially 
propagate everywhere; in my view, this is worse than actually breaking 
some code.


Stef





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