I was saying that I expected #($a $b $c) asString ==> 'abc'.
If you want something that can be read back, that's what #storeString is for,

On Tue, 12 May 2020 at 01:28, Stéphane Ducasse
<stephane.duca...@inria.fr> wrote:
>
>
>
> On 5 May 2020, at 16:16, Richard O'Keefe <rao...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> By the way, while playing with this problem, I ran into a moderately
> painful issue.
>
> There is a reason that Smalltalk has both #printString (to get a
> printable representation of an object) and #asString (to convert a
> sequence to another kind of sequence with the same elements.)  If I
> *want* #printString, I know where to find it.  The definition in my
> Smalltalk no reads
>
>    asString
>      "What should #($a $b $c) do?
>      - Blue Book, Inside Smalltalk, Apple Smalltalk-80:
>        there is no #asString.
>      - ANSI, VW, Dolphin, CSOM:
>        #asString is defined on characters and strings
>        (and things like file names and URIs that are sort of strings),
>        so expect an error report.
>      - VisualAge Smalltalk:
>        '($a $b $c)'
>      - Squeak and Pharo:
>        '#($a $b $c)'
>      - GNU Smalltalk, Smalltalk/X, and astc:
>        'abc'
>       I don't intend any gratuitous incompatibility, but when there
>       is no consensus to be compatible with, one must pick something,
>       and this seems most useful.
>      "
>      ^String withAll: self
>
> Does anyone here know WHY Squeak and Pharo do what they do here?
>
>
> Oops I did not see the quotes on my screen..
>
> #( a b c) asString
> >>> '#(#a #b #c)’
>
> this is unclear to me why this is not good but I have no strong opinion
> that this is good.
>
> I worked on printString for literals because I wanted to have
> self evaluating properties for basic literal like in Scheme and others.
> where
> #t
> >>>
> #t
>
> And I payed attention that we get the same for literal arrays.
> Now the conversion is open to me.
>
> #($a $b $c) asString
> >>>
> '#($a $b $c)’
>
> In fact I do not really understand why a string
>
> #($a $b $c) asString would be '(a b c)’
> and its use
> if this is to nicely display in the ui I would have
> displayString doing it.
>
> S.
>
>
>
> On Wed, 6 May 2020 at 01:20, Richard O'Keefe <rao...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> The irony is that the code I was responding to ISN'T obviously correct.
> Indeed, I found it rather puzzling.
> The problem specification says that the input string may contain digits
> AND SPACES.  The original message includes this:
>
> Strings of length 1 or less are not valid. Spaces are allowed in the
> input, but they should be stripped before checking. All other
> non-digit characters are disallowed.
>
> Now it isn't clear what "disallowed" means.  I took it to mean "may occur and
> should simply mean the input is rejected as invalid."  Perhaps "may not occur"
> was the intention.  So we shall not quibble about such characters.
>
> But I can't for the life of me figure out how Trygve's code checks for spaces.
> One reason this is an issue is that the behaviour of #digitValue is not
> consistent between systems.
>  Character space digitValue
>    does not exist in the ANSI standard
>    answers -1 in many Smalltalks (which is a pain)
>    answers a positive integer that can't be mistake for a digit in my 
> Smalltalk
>    raises an exception in some Smalltalks.
>
> This is a comment I now have in my Smalltalk library for #digitValue
>      "This is in the Blue Book, but unspecified on non-digits.
>       Squeak, Pharo, Dolphin, VW, VAST, and Apple Smalltalk-80
>       answer -1 for characters that are not digits (or ASCII letters),
>       which is unfortunate but consistent with Inside Smalltalk
>       which specifies this result for non-digits.
>       ST/X and GST raise an exception which is worse.
>       Digitalk ST/V documentation doesn't specify the result.
>       This selector is *much* easier to use safely if it
>       returns a 'large' (>= 36) value for non-digits."
>
> Let's compare three versions, the two I compared last time,
> and the "version A" code I discussed before, which to my mind
> is fairly readable.
>
> "Don't add slowness": 1 (normalised time)
> "Trygve's code":  6.5
> "High level code": 30.6 (or 4.7 times slower than Trygve's)
>
> Here's the "High level code".
>      ^(aString allSatisfy: [:each | each isSpace or: [each isDigit]]) and: [
>        |digitsReverse|
>        digitsReverse := (aString select: [:each | each isDigit]) reverse.
>        digitsReverse size > 1 and: [
>          |evens odds evenSum oddSum|
>          odds  := digitsReverse withIndexSelect: [:y :i | i odd].
>          evens := digitsReverse withIndexSelect: [:x :i | i even].
>          oddSum  := odds  detectSum: [:y | y digitValue].
>          evenSum := evens detectSum: [:x |
>                       #(0 2 4 6 8 1 3 5 7 9) at: x digitValue + 1].
>          (oddSum + evenSum) \\ 10 = 0]]
>
> This is the kind of code I was recommending that Roelof write.
>
> As a rough guide, by counting traversals (including ones inside existing
> methods), I'd expect the "high level" code to be at least 10 times slower
> than the "no added slowness" code.
>
> We are in vehement agreement that there is a time to write high level
> really obvious easily testable and debuggable code, and that's most
> of the time, especially with programming exercises.
>
> I hope that we are also in agreement that factors of 30 (or even 6)
> *can* be a serious problem.  I mean, if I wanted something that slow,
> I'd use Ruby.
>
> I hope we are also agreed that (with the exception of investigations
> like this one) the time to hack on something to make it faster is AFTER
> you have profiled it and determined that you have a problem.
>
> But I respectfully suggest that there is a difference taking slowness OUT
> and simply not going out of your way to add slowness in the first place.
>
> I'd also like to remark that my preference for methods that traverse a
> sequence exactly once has more to do with Smalltalk protocols than
> with efficiency.  If the only method I perform on an object is #do:
> the method will work just as well for readable streams as for
> collections.  If the only method I perform on an object is #reverseDo:
> the method will work just as well for Read[Write]Streams as for
> SequenceReadableCollections, at least in my library.   It's just like
> trying to write #mean so that it works for Durations as well as Numbers.
>
> Oh heck, I suppose I should point out that much of the overheads in
> this case could be eliminated by a Self-style compiler doing dynamic
> inlining + loop fusion.    There's no reason *in principle*, given enough
> people, money, and time, that the differences couldn't be greatly
> reduced in Pharo.
>
> On Tue, 5 May 2020 at 21:50, Trygve Reenskaug <tryg...@ifi.uio.no> wrote:
>
>
> Richard,
>
> Thank you for looking at the code. It is comforting to learn that the code 
> has been executed for a large number of examples without breaking. The code 
> is not primarily written for execution but for being read and checked by the 
> human end user. It would be nice if we could also check that it gave the 
> right answers, but I don't know how to do that.
>
> The first question is: Can a human domain expert read the code and sign their 
> name for its correctness?
>
>
> When this is achieved, a programming expert will transcribe the first code to 
> a professional quality program. This time, the second code should be reviewed 
> by an independent programmer who signs their name for its correct 
> transcription from the first version.
>
> --Trygve
>
> PS: In his 1991 Turing Award Lecture, Tony Hoare said: "There are two ways of 
> constructing a software design: One way is to make it so simple that there 
> are obviously no deficiencies and the other is to make it so complicated that 
> there are no obvious deficiencies. The first method is far more difficult."
>
> --Trygve
>
> On tirsdag.05.05.2020 04:41, Richard O'Keefe wrote:
>
> As a coding experiment, I adapted Trygve  Reenskoug's code to my
> Smalltalk compiler, put in my code slightly tweaked, and benchmarked
> them on randomly generated data.
>
> Result: a factor of 6.3.
>
> In Squeak it was a factor of ten.
>
> I had not, in all honesty, expected it to to be so high.
>
> On Tue, 5 May 2020 at 02:00, Trygve Reenskaug <tryg...@ifi.uio.no> wrote:
>
> A coding experiment.
> Consider a Scrum development environment. Every programming team has an end 
> user as a member.
> The team's task is to code a credit card validity check.
> A first goal is that the user representative shall read the code and agree 
> that it is a correct rendering of their code checker:
>
>    luhnTest: trialNumber
>        | s1 odd s2 even charValue reverse |
> -----------------------------------------------
> " Luhn test according to Rosetta"
> "Reverse the order of the digits in the number."
>    reverse := trialNumber reversed.
> "Take the first, third, ... and every other odd digit in the reversed digits 
> and sum them to form the partial sum s1"
>    s1 := 0.
>    odd := true.
>    reverse do:
>        [:char |
>            odd
>                ifTrue: [
>                    s1 := s1 + char digitValue.
>                ].
>                odd := odd not
>        ].
> "Taking the second, fourth ... and every other even digit in the reversed 
> digits:
> Multiply each digit by two and sum the digits if the answer is greater than 
> nine to form partial sums for the even digits"
>    "The subtracting 9 gives the same answer. "
> "Sum the partial sums of the even digits to form s2"
>    s2 := 0.
>    even := false.
>    reverse do:
>        [:char |
>            even
>                ifTrue: [
>                    charValue := char digitValue * 2.
>                    charValue > 9 ifTrue: [charValue := charValue - 9].
>                    s2 := s2 + charValue
>                ].
>                even := even not
>        ].
> "If s1 + s2 ends in zero then the original number is in the form of a valid 
> credit card number as verified by the Luhn test."
>    ^(s1 + s2) asString last = $0
> ---------------------------------
> Once this step is completed, the next step will be to make the code right 
> without altering the algorithm (refactoring). The result should be readable 
> and follow the team's conventions.
>
>
> P.S. code attached.
>
>
> --
>
> The essence of object orientation is that objects collaborate  to achieve a 
> goal.
> Trygve Reenskaug      mailto: tryg...@ifi.uio.no
> Morgedalsvn. 5A       http://folk.uio.no/trygver/
> N-0378 Oslo             http://fullOO.info
> Norway                     Tel: (+47) 468 58 625
>
>
>
> --------------------------------------------
> Stéphane Ducasse
> http://stephane.ducasse.free.fr / http://www.pharo.org
> 03 59 35 87 52
> Assistant: Julie Jonas
> FAX 03 59 57 78 50
> TEL 03 59 35 86 16
> S. Ducasse - Inria
> 40, avenue Halley,
> Parc Scientifique de la Haute Borne, Bât.A, Park Plaza
> Villeneuve d'Ascq 59650
> France
>

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