Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!CS.ARIZONA.EDU!cjeffery
From: cjeffery@CS.ARIZONA.EDU ("Clinton Jeffery")
Newsgroups: comp.lang.icon
Subject: Idol gotcha:  mixing procedures and methods
Message-ID: <9106031917.AA17352@cheltenham.cs.arizona.edu>
Date: 3 Jun 91 19:17:05 GMT
References: <9105312217.AA02235@luvthang.UUCP>
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Distribution: inet
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 11

<<This is a reply to David Talmage's note on mixing procedures and methods
  in Idol.  Regular Icon readers will not miss anything if they skip it.>>

Procedures inside class declarations are regular Icon procedures and do not
have any implicit "self" object on which to operate.  Idol used to flag this
with an error to prevent the kind of confusion Mr. Talmage experienced.  But
it is quite useful to allow normal Icon code (such as helping procedures)
to be included within a class declaration.  Idol does not take the view
that every piece of code should be a method, any more than it views
every piece of data as an object.  Saying "procedure" when you mean
"method" will indeed cause the kind of problems Mr. Talmage described.