On 16.02.2011, at 10:39, Serge Stinckwich wrote: > On Wed, Feb 16, 2011 at 4:24 PM, Nicolas Cellier > <nicolas.cellier.aka.n...@gmail.com> wrote: >> I started referencing Smalltalk idioms at >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_programming_languages_(string_functions) >> I could have focused on ANSI but have chosen Squeak/Pharo. Feel free >> to correct me and to complete me. >> >> This is a very enlighting exercize, especially for pointing when API >> turns to be not that bright. >> During my perigrination, I notably noticed this: >> >> #compare: returns 1, 2, or 3 : this is both very object oriented, very >> intuitive and very standard and the rest of the world is stupid, >> unless... > > Yes, really stupid, but maybe Squeak/Pharo should align here to the > rest of the world or > better, remove this method. We could use comparaison methods instead: <, >, > ...
It is a low-level primitive, better indeed to use those operators instead, not call the compare* methods directly. For case-insensitive comparisons you should use e.g. caseInsensitiveLessOrEqual:. If we want to provide a method that answers -1, 0, and 1 I'd leave the #compare: family alone, and instead add the operator <=> as in Ruby (which would be case-sensitive). My 0.02€ - Bert -
