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From: johnson@uiucdcsp.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.lang.smalltalk
Subject: Re: Block variables
Message-ID: <80500002@uiucdcsp>
Date: Mon, 6-Apr-87 08:48:00 EST
Article-I.D.: uiucdcsp.80500002
Posted: Mon Apr  6 08:48:00 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 11-Apr-87 03:51:28 EST
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Nf-From: uiucdcsp.cs.uiuc.edu!johnson    Apr  6 07:48:00 1987


Smalltalk-80 defines block arguments the same way.  A block argument
is really just a temporary variable. In fact, the following method

foo
    [:t| 3] value: 4.
    ^t

not only compiles, it returns 4.  This is not a bug in the compiler,
though it may well be considered to be a bug in the language.  The
language was defined this way for performance reasons (evaluating a block
does not have to create a new context) but it is definitely counterintuitive.
It will probably be changed someday.