Re: display _ as left arrow (was Re: Help on sending a UDP Packet)

[Stefan Monnier]

Derek Zhou writes:
> Accept, but not encourage. None of the GNU smalltak and Squeak's official
> example code use it. ":=" at least is a cognate from Pascal, what else is
> using "_" ?

Indeed, and that's a good reason to say that it doesn't matter very much
if `smalltalk-mode` prettifies `_` or not, but it still doesn't seem to hurt.

Derek Zhou writes:
> You quoted me out of context. I was commenting on the patch and what I
> mean was the patch you made does not do the right thing, that's all. To
> do the right thing, ie, with prettified symbol and syntax highlight, you
> need to do more; patch welcomed. 

Ah, you mean that `smalltalk-mode` doesn't handle `_` correctly w.r.t
indentation, for example?  Indeed, a I think a patch is in order
for that.

I installed the patch below for now.  It includes the change to display
`_` as a left-arrow, since it seems noone strongly objected to it and it
can be helpful in pointing out the difference between `a_-1` and `a
_-1`.
Also it bumps the version number so as to finally release a new GNU ELPA
package for it.

> Initially I liked the idea of a pretty-print filter,
> but I'm not so sure any longer.
>
> It may complicate things;  perhaps it's not such a good idea to have a 
> pretty-print filter,
> anyway.

`smalltalk-prettify-symbols-alist` is just a set of rules to change
the display (and only the display) of those symbols mentioned.
The prettification is only applied when the users activate
`prettify-symbols-mode`, which is not enabled by default (because
indeed, it's not always a good idea).


        Stefan