On Fri, May 27, 2016 at 3:02 AM, Joseph Alotta <joseph.alo...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> On May 26, 2016, at 8:29 AM, Ron Teitelbaum [via Smalltalk] <[hidden >> email]> wrote: >> >> One more question for you. I mentioned returning a newly created instance >> or a specific class from a class side method. Can you name another reason >> why you would write a method on the class side? > > When there is only one > instance of an object and other is not desirable or logical. > > For example, one compiler: two is not practical. One instance of the number > Pi. One instance of Nil. Why would you need another?
One downside of this approach is that it can make developing/running unit tests harder when your tests are changing global state - which is what class variables kind-of are. cheers -ben > >> Why would it be a good idea to put a method on the class side instead of >> the instance side? (a hint for you, I’m thinking of something where nothing >> is returned. (of course in Smalltalk if nothing is returned you get back >> self, what I mean is that nothing useful is returned)) Bonus points for 2 or >> more answers with or without returning >> something J. > > You would put a method on the class side when the method applies to all > instances of the class. For example, Window closeAllWindows. Or Process > stopAllProcesses. Or Smalltalk saveImage. > > I don’t think this is what you had in mind, though. > > Sincerely, > > Joe. > > > > ________________________________ > View this message in context: Re: FileDirectory > Sent from the Squeak - Beginners mailing list archive at Nabble.com. > > _______________________________________________ > Beginners mailing list > Beginners@lists.squeakfoundation.org > http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/beginners > _______________________________________________ Beginners mailing list Beginners@lists.squeakfoundation.org http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/beginners
