[squeak-dev] Explorer / Inspector bug?

Nicolas Cellier nicolas.cellier.aka.nice at gmail.com
Thu Mar 11 15:22:43 UTC 2021


With asString, we ask the object itself to convert as String. It can very
well have its own idea how to do it. In case of second, it's a different
thing, it acts on behalf of another object, without using the slightest
ounce of own identity...

Le jeu. 11 mars 2021 à 11:22, Thiede, Christoph <
Christoph.Thiede at student.hpi.uni-potsdam.de> a écrit :

> > Grammar rules apart, if second has to answer a unit of 1 second, why
> the hell send such message to 5? Why not Time second for example?
>
> Just syntactic sugar, similar to #asString instead of "String newFrom:
> ..." Iirc Kent Beck disrecommended the idea in general, but I like its
> convenience. :-)
>
> Best,
> Christoph
>
> ------------------------------
> *Von:* Squeak-dev <squeak-dev-bounces at lists.squeakfoundation.org> im
> Auftrag von Nicolas Cellier <nicolas.cellier.aka.nice at gmail.com>
> *Gesendet:* Donnerstag, 11. März 2021 08:16:51
> *An:* The general-purpose Squeak developers list
> *Betreff:* Re: [squeak-dev] Explorer / Inspector bug?
>
> Grammar rules apart, if second has to answer a unit of 1 second, why the
> hell send such message to 5? Why not Time second for example?
>
> Le jeu. 11 mars 2021 à 02:25, David T. Lewis <lewis at mail.msen.com> a
> écrit :
>
>> On Tue, Mar 09, 2021 at 01:47:49PM +0000, Thiede, Christoph wrote:
>> > > "I want a two second delay" is perfectly valid :D
>> >
>> > Maybe a native English speaker can correct me but afaik, in the grammar
>> > dependency tree of "two-second delay", "two-second" is not an independet
>> > noun but a pre-modifying phrase only. Shall we really start to support
>> > even more different types of words in an object-oriented language like
>> > Smalltalk? Imho, substantives and verbs are already enough. :-)
>> >
>>
>> I am a native Engish speaker with a poor understanding of grammar, so
>> that makes me a good person to attempt an answer ;-)
>>
>> The use of singular "second" or plural "seconds" may depend on the
>> context of the expression, but in any case if I were to hear someone
>> say "five second" I would understand it to refer to five seconds, not
>> one second. If I were to try to enforce correct English (is there such
>> a thing? of course not), then I might try to treat "five second" as
>> an error. But we do not really need to enforce English syntax rules,
>> and in this case it is more important for the expression to do the
>> right thing.
>>
>> So for me as an English speaker, I overlook the difference between
>> "second" and "seconds" and I prefer to have the expression do what
>> I expect in either case.
>>
>> For this reason, it makes sense to me for #second and #seconds to
>> be treated as synonyms.
>>
>> Dave
>>
>>
>>
>
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