Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!uunet!ann!tce
From: tce@ann.UUCP (Thomas C. Evans)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.smalltalk
Subject: Re: Organizations for Smalltalk/V
Summary: Enhance Method Catagories to promote encapsulation
Keywords: smalltalk browser encapsulation
Message-ID: <157@ann.UUCP>
Date: 17 Mar 89 18:10:32 GMT
References: <878@internal.Apple.COM>
Reply-To: tce@ann.UUCP (Thomas C. Evans)
Lines: 34

In article <878@internal.Apple.COM> mark@apple.com (mark lentczner) writes:
>
>So now the questions:
>1) There is a problem that new code with organizations will not file into 
>systems without them.  I can fix this by supplying two methods that get 
>filed into those systems that drop the organization info from the file-in. 
>(Assuming the target system doesn't want organizations.)  Does this sound 
>reasonable or does anyone else have a better idea?
>
>2) My organizations differ from the classic Smalltalk-80 ones in two 
>respects: they are always sorted by group name (ST-80s are in the order 
>you put them) and methods and classes can appear in more than one 
>group!  This seems like a win for classes:  One can include them in 
>several places if it makes sense.  Any comments on this?

 That all sounds like a good start at building better than PPS tools
 into ST/V.  If your new code must be filedOut with catagories how
 do I file It in in the first place?  Could you modify fileOut so that 
 the organization information is optional?  Getting better tools and
 staying compatible would be best of both.

 I like what you did with class catagories.  As far as method catagories
 are concerned, the organization (as a comment) is part of the 
 encapsulation of the language.  A method in catagory PRIVATE is the only
 way the language/system has to hide behaivor.  Consider creating a few
 default catagories when ever a new class is defined.  They could be:
   Instance          Class
    private           private
    initialization    initialization
                      instance creation
    reporting
    core interface
Be talking to you..
  Tom