> On Nov 24, 2022, at 11:15 AM, Taeumel, Marcel <Marcel.Taeumel at hpi.de> wrote:
> 
>  Hehe. Of course you do. 😉 I just wanted to highlight the fact that nil is no domain object. Exceptional usage should be done by intention. In general, ifNil checks interfere with readability of domain logic. Still, I see no harm in such ifNil checks. Who would agree on a domain-specific symbol for start anyway 😅


😅 <3

> 
> From: Squeak-dev <squeak-dev-bounces at lists.squeakfoundation.org> on behalf of Eliot Miranda <eliot.miranda at gmail.com>
> Sent: Thursday, November 24, 2022 7:53:35 PM
> To: The general-purpose Squeak developers list <squeak-dev at lists.squeakfoundation.org>
> Subject: Re: [squeak-dev] The Trunk: Compiler-eem.480.mcz
>  
> Hi Marcel,
> 
>>> On Nov 24, 2022, at 1:03 AM, Marcel Taeumel <marcel.taeumel at hpi.de> wrote:
>>> 
>> 
>> +1 Even for a loop-based algorithm, clarity would improve if the initial case would be flagged with a symbol, not nil:
>> 
>> x := #start.
>> [ ... ] whileTrue: [
>>    x = #start ifTrue: [x := ... ].
>>    ...
>> ].
> 
> Please don’t take this personally; I find the above pretentious in the extreme, and, given how much thought Smalltalk-80’s designers gave to initializing with nil (again it’s in the blue book), displaying and/or celebrating ignorance.  So -1,000.
> 
>> 
>> Best,
>> Marcel
>>> Am 23.11.2022 21:23:27 schrieb Tobias Pape <das.linux at gmx.de>:
>>> 
>>> Yet, nil is only seldom a good domain object.
>>> -t
>>> 
>>> > On 23. Nov 2022, at 19:34, tim Rowledge wrote:
>>> > 
>>> > I won't quote it all again but what Eliot wrote is important. There are good solid reasons why Smalltalk has a rigorously defined UndefinedObject. We demand rigorously defined areas of doubt and uncertainty!
>>> > 
>>> > tim
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