Example A-SIGNATURES Re: A Way to express Standard multi-argument Method Signatures in Smalltalk Re: [ANSI-Smalltalk] Next STEPs

[Paolo Bonzini]

Eliot Miranda wrote:
> To be even more blunt I think the standards process would be damaged if 
> it is used as a way to introduce experimental extensions into the 
> language.  I can imagine that attemting to standardise method pragmas 
> would be contentious enough given that theyre supported by only three 
> dialects to my knowledge, and then in different ways, even though 
> they're of proven use.  But attempting to standardize something that 
> isn't in the base of any dialect is going to cause discord.  IMO, the 
> time to standardise some new feature is when it is well understood, has 
> proven its utility in practice and has a functional supporting ecology 
> (tools etc).  A-SIGNATURES doesn't meet any of these criteria.

IIUC, these "A-signatures" are just a way to hijack cons cells as a way 
to describe method signatures (and using chains of Associations as cons 
cells is often done in Workspace experiments -- I remember seeing it 
from you even while working on AOStA...).  So I can imagine a "real" 
class MethodSignature to accept an "A-signature" as a shortcut, and this 
was the usage I envisioned in my previous message to Panu.

However, for the sake of "writing STEPs" I agree that we should use the 
protocol system used by the ANSI standard.

Paolo