[ANSI-Smalltalk] Writing the standard in Smalltalk [long]

[Paolo Bonzini]

Martin McClure wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> When I started the "Editing and executable specification" thread on Nov. 
> 15, I had only a vague idea of what I wanted. After reading the comments 
> on that thread, and thinking about it some more, I wrote up an initial 
> framework this weekend.

Very nice.

I attach the ANSI standard protocol database as used in GNU Smalltalk's 
test cases (code originally by Richard A. Harmon).

As complicated as it might look, the idea is pretty simple.  It has only 
five methods:

- #protocolManager
Weirdly enough, "1 protocolManager" is what everybody else would have 
written "ProtocolManager uniqueInstance".

- #newProtocolNamed:conformsToProtocolNames:
A note: in a couple of cases the standard used multiple protocol 
inheritance:
'Exception' -> 'exceptionBuilder' 'signaledException'
'Exception class' -> 'exceptionInstantiator' 'classDescription'
'exceptionBuilder' -> 'exceptionDescription' 'exceptionSignaler'
'exceptionInstantiator' -> 'exceptionSignaler' 'exceptionSelector' 
'instantiator'
'Object class' -> 'instantiator' 'classDescription'
'OrderedCollection' -> 'sequencedCollection' 'extensibleCollection' 
'sequencedContractibleCollection'
'readableString' -> 'sequencedReadableCollection' 'magnitude'
etc.

- #protocolDescription:
Easy enough.

- and the two big ones
#newMessagePattern:forProtocolNamed:synopsis:definedIn:definition:refinedIn:refinement:parameters:returnRule:errors:
#newMessagePattern:forProtocolNamed:synopsis:definedIn:definition:refinedIn:refinement:parameters:returnValues:errors:

where the former is only used for arithmetic operations, more or less.

Paolo
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: ansidb.st.gz
Type: application/x-gzip
Size: 59884 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.openskills.org/pipermail/ansi-smalltalk/attachments/20071126/c28208c1/ansidb.st-0001.bin