You didn't comment on this beauty: current := contents at: index. current := contents at: index + 1. (current = 13 and: [next = 10])
On August 10, 2025 4:23:29 PM PDT, Richard O'Keefe via Pharo-users <pharo-users@lists.pharo.org> wrote: >Ah, the heck with it. Here's an experiment I did just now. > >Prompt: > Write a method in Pharo Smalltalk to determine the line termination >convention of a text file, > given the name of the file. >Response: > detectLineEndingInFileNamed: filename > |file contents crlfCount crCount lfCount| > file := FileStream readOnlyFileNamed: fileName. > contents := file next: 10000. > file close. > crlfCount := 0. > crCount := 0. > lfCount := 0. > 1 to: contents size - 1 do: [:index | > |current next| > current := contents at: index. > current := contents at: index + 1. > (current = 13 and: [next = 10]) > ifTrue: [crlfCount := crlfCount + 1]]. > 1 to: contents size do: [:index | > |current| > current := contents at: index. > current = 10 ifTrue: [lfCount := ifCount + 1]. > current = 13 ifTrue: [crCount := crCount + 1]]. > ^Dictionare new > at: #crlf put: crlfCount; > at: #cr put: crCount; > at: #lf put: lfCount; > yourself. > >The first thing that hit me was that this was better than I expected. >The second thing I noticed was that it doesn't actually solve the problem. >It reports some counts, but it makes no determination. >It should be something like > (lfCount >= crCount and: [lfCount >= crlfCount]) ifTrue: [^#lf]. > (crCount >= lfCount and: [crCount >= crlfCount]) ifTrue: [^#cr]. > ^#crlf >The next thing to catch my eye was the use of two loops, when one would do, >and pondering that showed me that THE LF COUNT IS INCORRECT. >Each line ending with CR+LF will be counted twice, once as an instance of CR+LF >and once as an instance of LF. Write the loop as > prev := 32 "Character space codePoint". > contents do: [:each | > each = 10 > ifTrue: [ > prev = 13 > ifTrue: [crlfCount := crlfCount + 1 > ifFalse: [lfCount := lfCount + 1]] > ifFalse: [ > each = 13 ifTrue: [crCount := crCount + 1]]. > prev := each].. > crCount := crCount - crlfCount. >And then it hit me. Pharo doesn't *have* a FileStream class any more. >It should be something like > stream := fileName asFileReference binaryReadStream. > >Finally, some files really do have outrageously long llines. 10000 is >an arbitrary choice. >The only reason it's needed is to avoid trying to load a big file into >memory, but the only >reason to try to load a big file into memory it to scan the contents >twice, which we do not need. >We couldjust read all the bytes of the file one by one. But with the >arbitrary limit, there will >be files where this gives misleading answers. > >So we have a simple prompt for a simple method with four problems: > - a bug that prevents running tests at all (FileStream) > - a bug that will be found immediately by testing (wrong kind of answer) > - a bug that will be found by testing (CR being counted twice) > - a bug that will probably not be found by testing (misleading >answers for large files > with mixed conventions or exceedingly long first line) > >This has been my experience every time I've tried to use AI to generate code. >Bugs bugs bugs, to the point where it's less work to write the code >myself than to debug the AI's. > > >On Mon, 11 Aug 2025 at 10:10, Richard O'Keefe <rao...@gmail.com> wrote: >> >> Not long ago I tried one of the freely available AI systems that was >> supposed to be especially good at coding problems. >> I gave it five simple tasks, and it horribly flubbed every one of them. >> Even getting *syntactically* correct code in a less common language >> took a lot of prompting. >> A while back, someone displayed some AI-generated "Smalltalk" code in >> this mailing list. >> It didn't work. >> >> "better Pharo support" means what, exactly? >> Do your requirements include generating *correct* code? >> >> It would be valuable for someone to conduct some experiments and >> report them here. >> >> On Mon, 11 Aug 2025 at 08:04, Arild Dyrseth via Pharo-users >> <pharo-users@lists.pharo.org> wrote: >> > >> > Has any assessment been made as to which of the LLMs currently provide the >> > better Pharo coding support ? >> > >> > >> > >> > Kind regards, >> > >> > Arild Dyrseth
