Re: [Help-smalltalk] short list of possible smalltalk extensions

[Sungjin Chun]

I like these extensions :-) But one question, how about compatibility?

On Sun, Dec 5, 2010 at 11:06, Paolo Bonzini <address@hidden> wrote:
> 1) nested classes.  GNU Smalltalk already supports Class.ClassVar notation
> to access class variables.  This could be easily extended to support nested
> classes, all it requires is parser support.
>
> Note these wouldn't be closures like Java inner classes, they would just use
> the class pool dictionary as a namespace.
>
>        hidden complications: GUI support, fileout support,
>        reflection support
>
>
> 2) additional binary operators.  This can come in many ways:
>
> 2.a) ".." instead of #to:.  Also make the compiler recognize "a .. b do: []"
> and similar.
>
> 2.b) Unicode binary operators.  Less-than-or-equal for example.  Let's wait
> for Perl 6 which also has those though. :)
>
>
> 3) additional literals.   #/abc/ for Regex, for example.
>
>
> 4) A magic DWIM "match" (I'll call it #=~) and "transform" (#<<) operator:
>
>        [:a | true] =~ something   matches everything
>        #/abc/ =~ something        means something matches regex
>        #(1 3 5 10) =~ something   means something is in the collection
>        'aeiouy' =~ something      strings are not special, but...
>        #even =~ something         ... means "something even == true"
>
>        [:a | a] << something      is the identity
>        #/\[.*\]/ << something     gives the first regex match
>        #(1 2 4 8) << something    maps key to value
>        '0123456789' << something  strings are not special, but...
>        #abs =~ something          ... symbols are
>
> #select: and #reject: use #=~, #collect: uses #<<.  It is also possible to
> use keyword methods, of course.
>
>
> 5) Extended blocks:
>
> 5.a) Anonymous variables for blocks.
>
>        x select: [ _ even ]
>        1..10 fold: [ _ + _ ]
>
> 5.b) Variable-argument blocks
>
>        [ :r :m :a... | r perform: m withArguments: a ]
>            value: 1 value: #+ value: 2
>
> 5.c) Optional (efficient) currying:
>
>        plus := [ :r :m :a... | r perform: m withArguments: a ] curry
>            value: 1 value: #+.
>
>        plus value: 2 "=> 3"
>
>
> Any more ideas?
>
> Paolo
>
>
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