This issue was more of a discussion between Camillo and Sven. They never reached a conclusion, so please take a look. I���ve compiled the transcript below.

The issue isn���t easy to solve and maybe we can just close it as ���not important���.

https://pharo.fogbugz.com/f/cases/11536/Add-Stream-printString

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Camillo:

This method should be added to avoid many asString sends.

Example:

stream nextPutAll: #('ABC') asString could be written as stream printString: #('ABC').

This is a common extension of the following pattern:

stream nextPutAll: #('ABC') printString could be written as stream print: #('ABC').

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Sven:

And what about #print: as implemented by Transcripts and SocketStreams ?

It is shorter.

Feels more familiar.

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Camillo:

#print: is already implement and doesn't solve the stream nextPutAll: foo asString case. Since you cannot simply write stream print: foo, since you get quotes added for Strings.

Ok, I admit that with decent design you can avoid this, since it should almost never happen that you have a String or a non string object in the same variable, right?

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Sven:

Yeah, that String issue is a bit annoying sometimes.

Indeed there is Stream>>#print: already.

But look:

ThreadSafeTranscript>>#print: anObject

�� �� self nextPutAll: anObject asString

how about that ?

There is also #<< whose implementation is even weirder, but it is handy.

The question remain: when do you want to mix Strings and other objects as arguments ?

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Camillo:

- #<< is basically a lazy combination of #nextPut: and #nextPutAll:

- #print: should call #printOn: on the initial argument, which for strings defaults to storeOn: which I think is wrong, but I would hardly stand a chance changing that :P

So my global goal here is to avoid any kind of asString sends while pushing stuff on a stream. Sadly this happens more often than I thought :/

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Sven:

Maybe this discussion should happen on the mailing list ?

Changing String>>#printOn: might be hard, but #<< is much more recent, no ? Could it not be changed to do what you want ? Like

Streamm>><< anObject

�� self nextPutAll: anObject asString

Another point is that #asString is not so efficient, since it creates throwaway Strings.