I agree with Ben’s reaction below , however the point that ? ! could be repurposed for something if they weren’t special characters is a good one. Maybe there are other usages we are missing, and that’s the point I guess.
Tim Sent from my iPhone > On 13 Sep 2019, at 17:41, Ben Coman <[email protected]> wrote: > > > >> On Wed, 11 Sep 2019 at 15:10, ducasse <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> >> > On 11 Sep 2019, at 04:07, James Foster <[email protected]> wrote: >> > >> > Would use of ? and ! in unary/keyword selectors be convention or somehow >> > required? If simply convention, then we should start with renaming testing >> > methods to be named is* or has*. >> > flag1 := anInteger even. “not good" > > Agreed. That could "almost" be construed as converting a 3 to a 2 or 4. > > >> > flag2 := anInteger isEven. “better" > > Agreed. It reads well. > > >> > flag3 := anInteger even?. “how much better?” > > For me, this doesn't read as well as flag2, but even though there is some > redundancy, for me a combination reads well... > flag3a := anInteger isEven? > Perhaps if "?"==>Boolean was a strong convention then there could be a check > when the value is returned rather than when it is used (or would that > complicate other things?) > > >> > flag4 := #(1 2 3) includes?: 2. “how much better?” > > My first impression is "yuck!", but then I think... "maybe" if there was a > definite benefit (i.e. optimization) from strong guarantees about the return > value being Boolean. > > >> >> I think that I would use ? mainly for unary message >> >> Now I’m sure that if you look carefully some people use >> >> include >> for the action >> includes >> for the tests >> >> I took include as an example and this is super not intention revealing. >> >> >> lineUpBlockBrackets >> >> lineUpBlockBrackets? >> Now I will rewrite them all as shouldLineUpBlockBrackets or >> isLineUpBlockBrackets and to me for unary message ? makes it a lot better. > > btw, some alternatives... > doBlockBracketsLineUp - reads well but "do" is already a loaded word > areBlockBracketsLinedUp - reads well with the past-tense phrasing > > cheers -ben
