RE: LFM + LFSP = LFE?

["Neil W. Van Dyke" <address@hidden>]

Avi Bryant <avi@beta4.com> writes at 12:32 12-Jun-2003 -0700:
> Smalltalk has always grouped methods into named method categories, which
> capture organizational intent pretty well IMO.  I've never understood why
> no other languages (that I know of) have adopted this.

I think method catgories like Smalltalk's make more sense in browsers
than they do in file-based environments where a sequence of method
definitions can be interspersed with comments serving the same purpose
as categories.

(One property of the Smalltalk browsers is that they aren't conducive to
a linear narrative through a mixture of code and comments, which
programmers sometimes wants.  Smalltalk browsers are all about nonlinear.)

Also, Smalltalk's method categories are often used for things for which
other languages provide semantic constructs, such as visibility/protection
(witness Smalltalk idiomatic "private" categories) and interfaces/protocols.

-- 
                                             http://www.neilvandyke.org/