> On 11 May 2020, at 23:19, Richard O'Keefe <rao...@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> I was saying that I expected #($a $b $c) asString ==> 'abc’.

To me it makes no sense. 
I do not understand what is asString in fact. 


> If you want something that can be read back, that's what #storeString is for,
> 
> On Tue, 12 May 2020 at 01:28, Stéphane Ducasse
> <stephane.duca...@inria.fr> wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> On 5 May 2020, at 16:16, Richard O'Keefe <rao...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>> By the way, while playing with this problem, I ran into a moderately
>> painful issue.
>> 
>> There is a reason that Smalltalk has both #printString (to get a
>> printable representation of an object) and #asString (to convert a
>> sequence to another kind of sequence with the same elements.)  If I
>> *want* #printString, I know where to find it.  The definition in my
>> Smalltalk no reads
>> 
>>   asString
>>     "What should #($a $b $c) do?
>>     - Blue Book, Inside Smalltalk, Apple Smalltalk-80:
>>       there is no #asString.
>>     - ANSI, VW, Dolphin, CSOM:
>>       #asString is defined on characters and strings
>>       (and things like file names and URIs that are sort of strings),
>>       so expect an error report.
>>     - VisualAge Smalltalk:
>>       '($a $b $c)'
>>     - Squeak and Pharo:
>>       '#($a $b $c)'
>>     - GNU Smalltalk, Smalltalk/X, and astc:
>>       'abc'
>>      I don't intend any gratuitous incompatibility, but when there
>>      is no consensus to be compatible with, one must pick something,
>>      and this seems most useful.
>>     "
>>     ^String withAll: self
>> 
>> Does anyone here know WHY Squeak and Pharo do what they do here?
>> 
>> 
>> Oops I did not see the quotes on my screen..
>> 
>> #( a b c) asString
>>>>> '#(#a #b #c)’
>> 
>> this is unclear to me why this is not good but I have no strong opinion
>> that this is good.
>> 
>> I worked on printString for literals because I wanted to have
>> self evaluating properties for basic literal like in Scheme and others.
>> where
>> #t
>>>>> 
>> #t
>> 
>> And I payed attention that we get the same for literal arrays.
>> Now the conversion is open to me.
>> 
>> #($a $b $c) asString
>>>>> 
>> '#($a $b $c)’
>> 
>> In fact I do not really understand why a string
>> 
>> #($a $b $c) asString would be '(a b c)’
>> and its use
>> if this is to nicely display in the ui I would have
>> displayString doing it.
>> 
>> S.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> On Wed, 6 May 2020 at 01:20, Richard O'Keefe <rao...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> The irony is that the code I was responding to ISN'T obviously correct.
>> Indeed, I found it rather puzzling.
>> The problem specification says that the input string may contain digits
>> AND SPACES.  The original message includes this:
>> 
>> Strings of length 1 or less are not valid. Spaces are allowed in the
>> input, but they should be stripped before checking. All other
>> non-digit characters are disallowed.
>> 
>> Now it isn't clear what "disallowed" means.  I took it to mean "may occur and
>> should simply mean the input is rejected as invalid."  Perhaps "may not 
>> occur"
>> was the intention.  So we shall not quibble about such characters.
>> 
>> But I can't for the life of me figure out how Trygve's code checks for 
>> spaces.
>> One reason this is an issue is that the behaviour of #digitValue is not
>> consistent between systems.
>> Character space digitValue
>>   does not exist in the ANSI standard
>>   answers -1 in many Smalltalks (which is a pain)
>>   answers a positive integer that can't be mistake for a digit in my 
>> Smalltalk
>>   raises an exception in some Smalltalks.
>> 
>> This is a comment I now have in my Smalltalk library for #digitValue
>>     "This is in the Blue Book, but unspecified on non-digits.
>>      Squeak, Pharo, Dolphin, VW, VAST, and Apple Smalltalk-80
>>      answer -1 for characters that are not digits (or ASCII letters),
>>      which is unfortunate but consistent with Inside Smalltalk
>>      which specifies this result for non-digits.
>>      ST/X and GST raise an exception which is worse.
>>      Digitalk ST/V documentation doesn't specify the result.
>>      This selector is *much* easier to use safely if it
>>      returns a 'large' (>= 36) value for non-digits."
>> 
>> Let's compare three versions, the two I compared last time,
>> and the "version A" code I discussed before, which to my mind
>> is fairly readable.
>> 
>> "Don't add slowness": 1 (normalised time)
>> "Trygve's code":  6.5
>> "High level code": 30.6 (or 4.7 times slower than Trygve's)
>> 
>> Here's the "High level code".
>>     ^(aString allSatisfy: [:each | each isSpace or: [each isDigit]]) and: [
>>       |digitsReverse|
>>       digitsReverse := (aString select: [:each | each isDigit]) reverse.
>>       digitsReverse size > 1 and: [
>>         |evens odds evenSum oddSum|
>>         odds  := digitsReverse withIndexSelect: [:y :i | i odd].
>>         evens := digitsReverse withIndexSelect: [:x :i | i even].
>>         oddSum  := odds  detectSum: [:y | y digitValue].
>>         evenSum := evens detectSum: [:x |
>>                      #(0 2 4 6 8 1 3 5 7 9) at: x digitValue + 1].
>>         (oddSum + evenSum) \\ 10 = 0]]
>> 
>> This is the kind of code I was recommending that Roelof write.
>> 
>> As a rough guide, by counting traversals (including ones inside existing
>> methods), I'd expect the "high level" code to be at least 10 times slower
>> than the "no added slowness" code.
>> 
>> We are in vehement agreement that there is a time to write high level
>> really obvious easily testable and debuggable code, and that's most
>> of the time, especially with programming exercises.
>> 
>> I hope that we are also in agreement that factors of 30 (or even 6)
>> *can* be a serious problem.  I mean, if I wanted something that slow,
>> I'd use Ruby.
>> 
>> I hope we are also agreed that (with the exception of investigations
>> like this one) the time to hack on something to make it faster is AFTER
>> you have profiled it and determined that you have a problem.
>> 
>> But I respectfully suggest that there is a difference taking slowness OUT
>> and simply not going out of your way to add slowness in the first place.
>> 
>> I'd also like to remark that my preference for methods that traverse a
>> sequence exactly once has more to do with Smalltalk protocols than
>> with efficiency.  If the only method I perform on an object is #do:
>> the method will work just as well for readable streams as for
>> collections.  If the only method I perform on an object is #reverseDo:
>> the method will work just as well for Read[Write]Streams as for
>> SequenceReadableCollections, at least in my library.   It's just like
>> trying to write #mean so that it works for Durations as well as Numbers.
>> 
>> Oh heck, I suppose I should point out that much of the overheads in
>> this case could be eliminated by a Self-style compiler doing dynamic
>> inlining + loop fusion.    There's no reason *in principle*, given enough
>> people, money, and time, that the differences couldn't be greatly
>> reduced in Pharo.
>> 
>> On Tue, 5 May 2020 at 21:50, Trygve Reenskaug <tryg...@ifi.uio.no> wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> Richard,
>> 
>> Thank you for looking at the code. It is comforting to learn that the code 
>> has been executed for a large number of examples without breaking. The code 
>> is not primarily written for execution but for being read and checked by the 
>> human end user. It would be nice if we could also check that it gave the 
>> right answers, but I don't know how to do that.
>> 
>> The first question is: Can a human domain expert read the code and sign 
>> their name for its correctness?
>> 
>> 
>> When this is achieved, a programming expert will transcribe the first code 
>> to a professional quality program. This time, the second code should be 
>> reviewed by an independent programmer who signs their name for its correct 
>> transcription from the first version.
>> 
>> --Trygve
>> 
>> PS: In his 1991 Turing Award Lecture, Tony Hoare said: "There are two ways 
>> of constructing a software design: One way is to make it so simple that 
>> there are obviously no deficiencies and the other is to make it so 
>> complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies. The first method is far 
>> more difficult."
>> 
>> --Trygve
>> 
>> On tirsdag.05.05.2020 04:41, Richard O'Keefe wrote:
>> 
>> As a coding experiment, I adapted Trygve  Reenskoug's code to my
>> Smalltalk compiler, put in my code slightly tweaked, and benchmarked
>> them on randomly generated data.
>> 
>> Result: a factor of 6.3.
>> 
>> In Squeak it was a factor of ten.
>> 
>> I had not, in all honesty, expected it to to be so high.
>> 
>> On Tue, 5 May 2020 at 02:00, Trygve Reenskaug <tryg...@ifi.uio.no> wrote:
>> 
>> A coding experiment.
>> Consider a Scrum development environment. Every programming team has an end 
>> user as a member.
>> The team's task is to code a credit card validity check.
>> A first goal is that the user representative shall read the code and agree 
>> that it is a correct rendering of their code checker:
>> 
>>   luhnTest: trialNumber
>>       | s1 odd s2 even charValue reverse |
>> -----------------------------------------------
>> " Luhn test according to Rosetta"
>> "Reverse the order of the digits in the number."
>>   reverse := trialNumber reversed.
>> "Take the first, third, ... and every other odd digit in the reversed digits 
>> and sum them to form the partial sum s1"
>>   s1 := 0.
>>   odd := true.
>>   reverse do:
>>       [:char |
>>           odd
>>               ifTrue: [
>>                   s1 := s1 + char digitValue.
>>               ].
>>               odd := odd not
>>       ].
>> "Taking the second, fourth ... and every other even digit in the reversed 
>> digits:
>> Multiply each digit by two and sum the digits if the answer is greater than 
>> nine to form partial sums for the even digits"
>>   "The subtracting 9 gives the same answer. "
>> "Sum the partial sums of the even digits to form s2"
>>   s2 := 0.
>>   even := false.
>>   reverse do:
>>       [:char |
>>           even
>>               ifTrue: [
>>                   charValue := char digitValue * 2.
>>                   charValue > 9 ifTrue: [charValue := charValue - 9].
>>                   s2 := s2 + charValue
>>               ].
>>               even := even not
>>       ].
>> "If s1 + s2 ends in zero then the original number is in the form of a valid 
>> credit card number as verified by the Luhn test."
>>   ^(s1 + s2) asString last = $0
>> ---------------------------------
>> Once this step is completed, the next step will be to make the code right 
>> without altering the algorithm (refactoring). The result should be readable 
>> and follow the team's conventions.
>> 
>> 
>> P.S. code attached.
>> 
>> 
>> --
>> 
>> The essence of object orientation is that objects collaborate  to achieve a 
>> goal.
>> Trygve Reenskaug      mailto: tryg...@ifi.uio.no
>> Morgedalsvn. 5A       http://folk.uio.no/trygver/
>> N-0378 Oslo             http://fullOO.info
>> Norway                     Tel: (+47) 468 58 625
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> --------------------------------------------
>> Stéphane Ducasse
>> http://stephane.ducasse.free.fr / http://www.pharo.org
>> 03 59 35 87 52
>> Assistant: Julie Jonas
>> FAX 03 59 57 78 50
>> TEL 03 59 35 86 16
>> S. Ducasse - Inria
>> 40, avenue Halley,
>> Parc Scientifique de la Haute Borne, Bât.A, Park Plaza
>> Villeneuve d'Ascq 59650
>> France
>> 
> 

--------------------------------------------
Stéphane Ducasse
http://stephane.ducasse.free.fr / http://www.pharo.org 
03 59 35 87 52
Assistant: Julie Jonas 
FAX 03 59 57 78 50
TEL 03 59 35 86 16
S. Ducasse - Inria
40, avenue Halley, 
Parc Scientifique de la Haute Borne, Bât.A, Park Plaza
Villeneuve d'Ascq 59650
France

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