Re: Design Patterns and Collection Classes

On 29.08.2002, Richard A. O'Keefe wrote:
>     "class instance creation methods"
>     key: k value: v
>         ^self new pvtKey: k value: v
>
> Except that this won't work; practically the only time I ever really
> need 'pvt' methods is so that a class can initialise a new instance
> without the initialisation method being exposed to another class, but
> the 'pvt' machinery will not let you do this: "private messages may
> only be sent to self".  If only there were a category of private messages
> that a class could send to 'self new'.  So the method _really_ has to be
> called #privateKey:value: and we just have to _hope_ that no outsider
> will use it.  So much for private methods.

But we can make it allow that!  It's just a small tweak in the 
Compiler, find my first hack at it attached.

This hack could be extended to also allow "super new" and "super 
new:", and maybe even check that it's compiling a class side method. 
I'll leave that open for discussion.

HTH,
Helge

P.S. Thanks, BTW, for mentioning

> Anyone read the paper about Smalltalk collections in OOPSLA 92?

I googled that you probably meant William R. Cook's "Interfaces and 
Specifications for the Smalltalk-80 Collection Classes", and CiteSeer 
was able to come up with a location on the web.  A *very* interesting 
read indeed.

%LessPvt.1.cs.gz
Description: application/applefile

LessPvt.1.cs.gz
Description: Binary data