[Brain-list] New ideas ... (and a happy new year!)

[Clemens H. <c.h...@gm...>]

Hi Manuel,

after some thinking and playing with Brain, I have got some new
ideas:

o Introduce <base>r<digits> style for denoting numbers. That was
  coming from Smalltalk, I believe. I like this more than the leading
  zero means octal, 0x means hex and so on. It would be more
  consistent and could work with *every* number base:

    2r01001101     #! Binary number
    8r1234567      #! Octal number
   16rABC001C      #! Hex number

o Introduce a method that enables me to determine if some object is a
  native one or not. That one should be easy: Every object derived
  from Object or one of its child should return 'false' on
  e.g. is-native? Others would returning 'true'.

o Bound methods
  This thought I got while thinking about realisation of callbacks. My
  thoughts: It should be possible to get implementation of a certain
  method. But as we have to differ native methods from Brain methods I
  would propose following.

  - Introduction of a new object Method or Message
  - I can get a bound Method object via e.g.
  
      method = anyobject method: :foo.
  
  - A bound Method object is associated with the object it was taken
    from. I can simply call it via :() that would invoke the method as
    it would be sended to the object. Like this:

      m = 1 method: :+.
      m(2).              #! equivalent to 1 + 2 => 3
      m(3).              #! equivalent to 1 + 3 => 4

  - From a non-native method, I could extract/get the block that
    implements this method:

      blk = (anObj method: :anMethod) block

    for native methods this should return 'nil'.

  - I can rebind bound Method objects to another receiver of same
    type:

      m = 1 method: :+.
      m(3).              #! equivalent to 1 + 3 => 4
      m rebind-to: 2.
      m(3).              #! rebound so equiv to 2 + 3 => 5

    This could be used for fine callback tricks ...

  I think this would be nice, as we could assign some bound Method
  objects as e.g. callbacks. We would not have to assign object *and*
  method name then. In an example of signal-slot in one of my last
  mails I have proposed:

    obj1 connect: :foo with: obj2 slot: :slot-foo.

  Due to my proposal, this could be changed then to:

    obj1 connect: :foo with: (obj2 method: :slot-foo).
  
What do you think about this all?

Ciao,
Clemens.


PS: A happy new year to you, your family and all friends-of-Brain.

-- 
Clemens Hintze  mailto: c.h...@gm...