shan@washington.cs.unc.edu (Yen-Ping Shan) (02/13/91)
A while ago I posted a request for recent updates to Smalltalk syntax. The
following is what I have received.
---Shan---
*******************************************************************
You inquired about a syntax for Smalltalk after the Blue Book.
There is an ANSI standard for Smalltalk put together in the last
few years, and it does differ from the Blue Book. One definite
difference is that ":=" is accepted for assignment in addition
to the left arrow, which is an underscore in standard ASCII.
I don't know the standard number, but if you find out could
you let me know.
Thanks,
--
Alan Knight knight@mrco.carleton.ca Outlaw
Dept. of Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering Software
Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, K1S 5B6 Patents
**********************************************************
From deutsch@parcplace.com Thu Jan 24 22:25:18 1991
Date: Thu, 24 Jan 91 19:24:39 PST
Message-Id: <9101250324.AA19865@atlantic>
To: shan@sargent.cs.unc.edu
Subject: Newer Smalltalk syntax
Status: R
I believe the documentation supplied with ParcPlace Release 4 contains a
complete and well-debugged syntax for the ParcPlace dialect (which includes
some post-Blue Book constructs like block temporaries and ByteArray
literals).
**********************************************************
In article <803@borg.cs.unc.edu> you write:
>Is there a new Smalltalk expression syntax after the one in the blue book?
>Can someone give me a pointer it?
The current Smalltalk syntax is more or less the same as in the blue book. Smalltalk/V
is slightly different, using := for assignment. If I remember rightly, blocks can
now have temporary variables; I forget the syntax for this.
On the other hand, there are loads of different languages around, each with its own
syntax.
If others have anything else to tell you, I'd be very grateful if you could pass it on
to me.
Andrew Jones,
Dept of Computing Maths, University of Wales College of Cardiff,
PO Box 916, Cardiff, Wales, UK, CF2 4YN. Tel: +44 (0)222 874000 x 5537
Internet: andrew%computing-maths.cardiff.ac.uk@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk
UUCP: andrew@cf-cm.UUCP or ...!uunet!mcsun!ukc!cf-cm!andrew
Janet: andrew@uk.ac.cardiff.computing-maths
**********************************************************
In comp.lang.smalltalk you write:
>Is there a new Smalltalk expression syntax after the one in the blue book?
>Can someone give me a pointer it?
>Thanks.
The only addition I know of was made when blocks were made true closures
in version 2.5. BlockClosures can have temporary variables declared within
the block; e.g.,
[:blockVar | | t1 t2 | ... ]
[| t1 | ...]
There are also the 2 tiny changes where ":=" replaces left-arrow and "^"
replaces up-arrow as a result of Smalltalk adopting host window fonts,
but that's typography rather than syntax.
I don't think there's any other new syntax. Do you have specific
examples that you're concerned about?
--
Mike Khaw
ParcPlace Systems, Inc., 1550 Plymouth St., Mountain View, CA 94043
Domain=khaw@parcplace.com, UUCP=...!{uunet,sun,decwrl}!parcplace!khaw