Re: [Help-smalltalk] criticism of the new syntax

[Derek Zhou]

On Monday 17 December 2007 01:01:10 am Paolo Bonzini wrote:
> Also, most languages (Java, Python, Ruby) are doing
> whole-class-as-a-block, and the main objective of the new syntax was to
> make the language reasonable to people familiar with those languages.
I agree; but I still think we should not _enforce_ whole-class-as-a-block like 
java does. It would seriously limit the freedom in organizing source code.  
> Yes, that's nice.  Unfortunately, I thought of it as well as of permitting
>
> Person >> new [
>      <category: '...'>
> ]
So loose methods like this are permitted? Come to think of it, there must be a 
way to define additional methods outside the main class definition block; 
otherwise one of the main strength (being able to add methods without 
subclassing) of smalltalk just disappears :)  
>
> at toplevel, but they would not be easy to implement in the current
> parser.  However, based on you proposal, something I could do pretty
> easily is this:
>
>      Object subclass: Person [
>
>          | name age |
>
>          Person class >> category: 'instance creation' [
>           new [
>                   ...
>           ]
>              ...
>          ]
>      ]
>
> What do you think?
But this is still whole-class-as-a-block, and it even add another layer of 
indention. What I really want is being able to break up a large class into 
multiple files, each one defining one of more categories.   
>
> Paolo

Derek