In my own Smalltalk, a string understands a little over two thousand

selectors, of which about 440 are specific to strings, the others

being shared by other sequences.�� That's quite a lot to search through.

As it happens, I *do* have a 'searching' category and the

#findString:[startingAt:][ignoringCase:][ifAbsent:] methods are

in it.�� The methods defined in the ANSI Smalltalk standard are

#indexOfSubCollection:startingAt:[ifAbsent:]

and are quite easy to find once you recall that methods for searching

in a sequence generally have 'find' or 'indexOf' in their name.

It is surprisingly hard to keep categories consistent.�� If there is

a way to say "here I am browsing method M in category G of class C,

is there an ancestor of C that puts the selector of M in a different

category?" I would love to know it.�� (Adding such a code critic to

my Smalltalk is on the TODO list.)

On Tue, 26 Feb 2019 at 00:20, Tim Mackinnon <tim@testit.works> wrote:

I always struggle (even after years of casually using smalltalk) to find the String methods that do the heavy lifting (and are comparable to other languages). The methods are normally there, but they often have names that don��t compare well with other languages.

I think that what doesn��t help is the categorisation of methods in String - for example - if I want to do some searching in a String - why is #findString: in ��accessing�� - I totally didn��t think to look in there. To be honest, I really wanted a protocol called ��searching�� - but its not there?

I find the protocols in the system to be pretty bad in all honesty. Its a good idea, but I don��t think its clear on whether its protocol, or category. And if the former - where are the tools to help ensure things conform to a protocol? If the latter - where are the useful, commonly used categories?

Are there any plans to do anything in this area - or is it just a lump it scenario?

Tim