<html> <head> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8"> </head> <body text="#000000" bgcolor="#FFFFFF"> <div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 2/6/24 5:21 PM, Juan Vuletich wrote: </div> <blockquote type="cite" cite="mid:65C25C99.6090805@cuis.st">Let me also elaborate a bit on the rationale. In Smalltalk-80 (and every other Smalltalk system since then), the docs will say that #new: will answer a collection of the requested size. But it is not like that for Set, Dictionary, OrderedCollection and a few others, that give a completely different semantics to this message. It is no _that_ bad when the message is sent to an explicit class, although you need to be aware of this. </blockquote> NO! Let me quote from my snarfed copy of the Bluebook/ Page 139 "The messages <tt>new</tt> and <tt>new:</tt> can be used to create instances of particular kinds of collections." That's all that's said about <tt>#new:</tt>. If you look at the Smalltalk80 comment for <tt>OrderedCollection>>#new:</tt> here it is: <img src="cid:part1.2F68609F.2C705F6A@klix.ch" alt=""> <tt>Set>>#new:</tt> looks like this: <img src="cid:part2.51020020.434A285C@klix.ch" alt=""> That's the comment for <tt>IdentityDictionary>>#new:</tt> <img src="cid:part3.CB711EC7.4E7F15CE@klix.ch" alt=""> Nothing is said about the semantics of <tt>#new:</tt>, instead the comments mostly deal with implementation details. <blockquote type="cite" cite="mid:65C25C99.6090805@cuis.st"> The real problem is when someone does `someCollection species new: aNumber`. It gets really tricky to find out what is going to happen. </blockquote> This wasn't the case with Smalltalk-80, it had 8 implementors of <tt>#new:</tt>. <blockquote type="cite" cite="mid:65C25C99.6090805@cuis.st"> This is a prime example of what I call "False Polymorphism". It looks like a polymorphic message, but it is not. It is (at least) two sets of senders/implementors, completely separated. This means obscure, misleading code. It makes me sick. I fix every instance of this I see. It rarely happens in the base Smalltalk-80 classes, but it is still wrong. </blockquote> The main issue is, that you are deeply convinced that the postulate that <tt><someClass> new: <someSmallPositiveInteger></tt> answers an object of size <tt>someSmallPositiveInteger </tt>is true. This never was the case. Your point about false polymorphism isn't a semantic one, it's a purely pragmatic one. If I had to maintain Cuis, I would love to have some simpler semantics for <tt>#new:</tt>, but also I support backwards compatibility over several versions. For Haver I will implement the following: <tt>#new:</tt> will keep its – admittedly – confusing semantics. <tt>#sizeOf:</tt> will create a SequenceableCollection of the right size and signal an error for Sets and their sub classes. If I need it, I will implement <tt>#forceSizeOf:</tt> for sets and dictionaries that will create such a beast with n arbitrary objects or arbitrary keys mapped to <tt>nil</tt>. When I have the proper infrastructure for deprecation in place, I will rethink adopting your changes to the semantics of <tt>#new:</tt>. I will do this, despite the fact that I am the only user of Haver, that I know about. Best Regards, Gerald </body> </html>