Re: [Help-smalltalk] [RFC] Smalltalk scripting syntax

[Stephen Compall]

For the class pool/class instance divide, why not take advantage of
convention?

| InterROB protocolVersion dynamicInstance RecordNames |

where InterROB and RecordNames are class pool variables, and
protocolVersion and dynamicInstance are class instance variables.

On Tue, 2007-03-13 at 22:11 +0200, parasti wrote:
> Oh, you're right.  I left class instance variables out of the picture.
> This is getting a bit confusing now...  I was trying to figure out a way
> without hijacking the temporary variable declaration.  I do think that
> it's better when all of the variables are explicitly declared instead of
> having their definitions being scattered all over the method definition
> scope.  (Or scopes!)  Well, class variables wouldn't, anyway.  But I'd
> rather choose that than using the temporary variable declaration
> literal.  I've gotten used to the idea that they're "temporary" and
> conceptually only exist during execution of something.  A lifetime of an
> object seems far too different to be called "execution" of the object.

A recent example:

nextSkipUnrecognized: partialRecord
    "Answer a block that will read the rest of partialRecord
     and deliver the content as an UnknownRecordType."
    | cont |
    ^cont := [:aConnection | | buffer |
        buffer := aConnection receiveBuffer.
        "I don't buffer the contentData myself, because it simply has
         to be buffered, and it might as well stay in aConnection
         receiveBuffer."
        (buffer size - buffer position)
            < partialRecord expectedDataSize
            ifTrue: [cont]
            ifFalse: [| content |
                      content := buffer next: partialRecord expectedDataSize.
                      aConnection receivedHandledUpToHere.
                      aConnection unknownRecordType:
                          (partialRecord withContentData: content).
                      self nextSkipPadding: partialRecord expectedPadding]]

Alternatively, using closures to persist tempvars is a perfectly
reasonable way to implement an object system.  SICP includes an example.

-- 
;;; Stephen Compall ** http://scompall.nocandysw.com/blog **
"Peta" is Greek for fifth; a petabyte is 10 to the fifth power, as
well as fifth in line after kilo, mega, giga, and tera.
  -- Lee Gomes, performing every Wednesday in his tech column
     "Portals" on page B1 of The Wall Street Journal

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