2014-11-22 13:23 GMT+01:00 Werner Kassens <wkass...@libello.com>: > >Thanks for all the answers, > >so, for better portability, maybe we should dissallow opals current > behavior > >and only accept "-5" and not "- 5" as negative numbers? > > Hi Nicolai, > perhaps. if you mean portability pharo->otherLanguage certainly. if you > mean otherLanguage->pharo, well you are the specialist, i only know pharo > and squeak as smalltalk dialects. of course you know that there exist > non-OO-languages that return the same result as opal if you enter "1 + - 2 > -->-1". and of course i know that if i want to translate something from > those other languages, deleting a <space> is the most simple of my problems. >
portability pharo -> other smalltalk languages. Consider you have a library that could be used on other smalltalk systems. And it just don't work because there is a space between the number and the sign. > > changing the pov slightly, when do you have to enter a negative number in > a program by hand? essentially only if you use that number as a constant > (apart from tests of course). numbers are entered often automatically from > outside files. ok, then you have those parsers that read in a string in a > more flexible way. but wouldnt it make sense if the compiler reacts > somewhat similar to those parsers? i for example do have a program, where > the user, admittedly not a usual user but essentially me, enters simple > inequalities (and here negative numbers are very common) as strings and the > compiler eats those strings more or less directly without any additional > parser put in between. > > i realize that with your reply you'd prefer a fact based argumentation and > i readily admit that as a simple user, i see it simple stupid emotionally. > if i understand pharo's history correctly, it came into existence because > some language developers wanted more freedom. of course syntax controls > thinking. i dont have any real problems if you disallow - 5, i use -5 > anyway, if it makes sense do it, you are the specialist. but what comes > next? will everything you enter into nautilus automatically be > pretty-printed? i understand that pharo has grown up now, and it makes > complete sense to me that it wants to play with the big boys. perhaps you > need a clear-cut simple structured syntax to get accepted by the business > community, but not every businessman is a complete idiot and for example > mathematica, which understands "1 + - 2", _is_ occasionally used to make > some real money. i'd think about how far i'd wanna go with this thought > control thing. so much <friendly grin> for my personal pov. > werner > > thank you werner, for your point of view. If someone came up with a good reason why opals behavior is actually wrong, I would change it. But I think now, it is not that important. We have much more things with higher priority. nicolai
