Issue 3329 in pharo: Object>>closeTo:

Status: Accepted
Owner: alexandre.bergel
Labels: Milestone-1.3

New issue 3329 by alexandre.bergel: Object>>closeTo:
http://code.google.com/p/pharo/issues/detail?id=3329

closeTo: is used to compare floats. closeTo: is defined on Object, which  
really does not make sense.

Comment #1 on issue 3329 by jbaptiste.arnaud: Object>>closeTo:
http://code.google.com/p/pharo/issues/detail?id=3329

Not only Float, Point and Number too.

The Behavior on Object is just a default Behavior,
If the object can be compare and is equal return try, else false.

I think is a artifact of defensive programming,
"ok we declare the method in Object to be sure it's defined somewhere."
Nevertheless that don't really making sense to create this kind of method on
Object, what is relevant to decide if a object is "close" of another
object. The semantics is completely ambiguous.
i think we should remove that crap.

I think we can discuss about renaming,remove or Replace the other  
occurrence of
#closeTo: too.

Comment #2 on issue 3329 by alexandre.bergel: Object>>closeTo:
http://code.google.com/p/pharo/issues/detail?id=3329

Yeah, I agree. But it is essentially interesting for Float:

Float>>closeTo: num
  "are these two numbers close?"
        num isNumber ifFalse: [^[self = num] ifError: [false]].
        self = 0.0 ifTrue: [^num abs < 0.0001].
        num = 0 ifTrue: [^self abs < 0.0001].
        ^self = num asFloat
                or: [(self - num) abs / (self abs max: num abs) < 0.0001]

The problem is that you can two float which are the same, but have a  
different internal representation.

But still, having closeTo: on Object does not make sense. Does it make  
sense to be able to do 'abc' closeTo: 'abc' ?

Updates:
        Labels: -Milestone-1.3

Comment #3 on issue 3329 by [hidden email]: Object>>closeTo:
http://code.google.com/p/pharo/issues/detail?id=3329

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