On Wed, Oct 26, 2016 at 05:51:40PM -0500, Chris Muller wrote:
> 
> In exchange for these blemishes, how many classes actually got benefit
> from inheriting the new implementation?
> 
>        Collection allSubclasses count: [ : each | (each
> lookupSelector: #size) methodClass = Collection]   "0"
>

Fair point. Every subclass of Collection reimplements #size in some way.
Collection>>size is never actually used by any class in the image, and
possibly not in any classes outside the image. So Collection>>size serves
as documentation of the intent, and as a default implementation if someone
were to implement a new subclass of Collection directly.

Some subclasses (e.g. Bag) would have similar characteristics and would presumably
benefit from the new #isEmpty implementation, but most seem to have #size
implementations that do not degrade in performance as size increases.

So Chris is raising a fair question. The new #isEmpty looks like it should be
faster, but is it actually so in practice?

Dave

p.s. I personally still prefer the new implementation on aesthetic grounds.