then use rebol and not Smalltalk. But do not imagine that Smalltalk will be rebol.
>>> Stéphane Ducasse wrote: >>> >>>> No it should follow well specified rules. >>>> >>> Ultimately the compiler is not really compiling smalltalk, it is >>> compiling some primitive concepts that Behaviour and friends turn in >>> to >>> smalltalk by virtue of their implementation. There is nothing >>> stopping >>> anyone one defining another language with entirely different >>> conventions. So the compiler should not enforce smalltalk rules. If >>> Behaviour/ClassDescription wants to enforce some rules then that is >>> Behaviour's business and it should be overrideable. >>> >> >> sorry I do not buy that. Do you know why Smalltalk 76 did not work >> because classes could change their syntax. >> > That sounds like a great idea to me. Ian's work on fonc also allows > that > kind of thing. > > Smalltalk is the simplest language with the least number of rules, and > least number of exceptions to the rules. This is what makes Smalltalk > stand out and what makes it powerful. So why do you think it is > virtuous > to add rules and add exceptions to rules. I always thought these > arbitrary conventions were a pain, and never saw the point in them > at all. > > For example if I implement a class with a class variable, Foo, and I > refactor it because I realise that I need it per subclass, I move it > into a class instance var, I end up having to change all the code from > Foo to foo. With these kinds of behavior why don't you also code with Uppercase everywhere. I think that this is totally insane. > The rule about globals being uppercase is another one I have broken > for > what I think is a good reason: defining null := Null default. This is because you need another pseudo variables nil true and false are exceptions to the lowercase rules. Now > > > I always find a reason to break conventions. For example in > Sake/Packages we break the convention of method names begining with a > lowercase letter, simply for readability. So I simply know in advance > that any such hard restriction is going to become a problem at some > point. Excellent like that I know that we will have to reinvent our wheel. And after you will complain that people do not look at your code... You see while browsing squeak code I'm annoyed by the empty line that people used because they used the formatted so we have empty lines everywhere for nothing. When I read you code I hate the code starting without a tab... And why because it slows me down when reading. > If it can be enshrouded as a social convention then that is good > enough, there is no need for the compiler to roll over and die. > > Keith > > _______________________________________________ > Pharo-project mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.gforge.inria.fr/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/pharo-project > _______________________________________________ Pharo-project mailing list [email protected] http://lists.gforge.inria.fr/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/pharo-project
