Posted by
Levente Uzonyi on
May 03, 2018; 9:28pm
URL: https://forum.world.st/The-Trunk-Collections-eem-792-mcz-tp5075599p5075729.html
On Thu, 3 May 2018, Chris Muller wrote:
>> On a serious note, libary methods, like that method, ought to be fast,
>
> Every method in the image is a library method, so what do you mean by
Really? Explain me how Browser >> #defaultBrowserTitle, a method I chose
randomly, is a library method?
> "like" that method? Below, you said can't base on the situation(s)
> it's currently used, so are there any methods in the image which
> *shouldn't* be so desperately optimized? I'm just trying to figure
> out your basis for saying "ought" above, about fast but not
> readability. Are those not the personal priorities of an expert
> developer? What about the priorities of the students and users in the
> Dynabook dream?
Others have explained why the readability argument is not very convicing.
About your other argument, I also find it rather weak. If Eliot's code is
too complex for "users", then how could they cope with the
complexity of #anySatisfy:?
>
>> because you can't know in what situation they will be used. Saying that it's
>> not even used is therefore not a valid reason.
>
> That's only true for the very lowest-level methods. Generally, it's
> better to design and code for what's known, and NOT try to code for
> the future / unknown. IF and when that future comes, it'd be easy
> enough for you to deal with any performance issues at THAT time. In
> the meantime, we "ought" :) to keep as much beautiful minimal
> elegance as we can.
So, if I decided to write a mail transfer agent, and I found that
optimizing #isAsciiString would bump the throughput by, let's say, 10%,
then and only then would I be allowed to change the implementation in
Squeak? Or should I keep my optimized version in my image, because it's
not considered generally useful?
Levente