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From: new@udel.edu (Darren New)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.smalltalk
Subject: Re: Question on Ordered Collections
Message-ID: <10979@nigel.udel.EDU>
Date: 13 Feb 90 13:10:34 GMT
References: <1045@prlhp1.prl.philips.co.uk> <10271@nigel.udel.EDU> <1151@cf-cm.UUCP>
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Reply-To: new@udel.edu (Darren New)
Distribution: comp.lang.smalltalk
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In article <1151@cf-cm.UUCP> andrew@computing-maths.cardiff.ac.uk (Andrew Jones) writes:
>As for making it more flexible, I can't see this. 
             . . .
>(or even while adding it:
>
>     ... add: (myVar <- 'hello') ...         ).
>In other words, getting hold of both the collection and the thing added
>seems to require a similar amount of effort in both cases.

Speaking from my experience with threaded interpreters (e.g., FORTH),
the thing you want to return is the thing you are more likely to have
to calculate. (In FORTH, the thing on the top of the stack is the thing
you are less likely to calculate, so that it may be passed to another
routine.)  So in forth, you say BLAH BLECK ! to store BLAH into the 
variable BLECK.  Normally, the right-hand side expression goes left-most
so that it is deeper and easier to pass on the stack without SWAPs and ROTs.
(Did that make any sense?  I thought not.  Let me try it using smalltalk...)

rememberFrom: xyzzy
    ^MyCollection add: xyzzy + 2

			 vs.

rememberFrom: xyzzy
    | t |
    MyCollection add: (t <- xyzzy + 2).
    ^t
where the + 2 is to represent an arbitrarily complex expression.

Anyway, I think this makes my point.  However, the power of Smalltalk
is sufficiently greater and the libraries are sufficiently larger that
the minor inconvenience at coding time is far outweighed by the major
inconvenience of not having consistency in the libraries. On the other hand,
there is always "yourself" if there is any doubt.  I really think at this
point it is a matter of taste.       -- Darren