On 1 November 2016 at 11:31, jtuchel@objektfabrik.de <jtuchel@objektfabrik.de> wrote:

Phil,

I see your point but disagree.
I don't use Pharo regularly, so I cannot currently check if the implementation around this emptiness check is complete.

With complete I mean that following your logic, theere should be at least implementations of

ifEmpty:
ifNotEmpty:
ifEmpty:ifNotEmpty:
ifEmptyOrNil:
ifEmptyOrNil:otherwise:

why pollution?��

it just convenience method. mind you, that #isEmpty is also convenience method, without it you would do it like:

myArray size isZero ifTrue: []

of wait.. #isZero also convenience method... so if you elitist then you have to write it like that:

myArray size = 0 ifTrue: []

And that , to my opinion, adds even more pollution to the user code, because first, it is longer, and second

#ifEmpty: much better clarifies the intent of author, comparing to size = 0

I really have to check for the size of collections very often, and the size of 1 is a very frequent case. So why not add:

ifExactlyOne:
ifSizeIs:do:
ifSizeIsGreaterThan:do:otherwiseDo:

You get the picture. I strongly believe this leads to pollution and ends up in a mess.
We could save so much typing and make our programs so much more readable if we only were a bit more creative, right? ;-)
A DSL is another story, though. If you write a Library that makes handling Collections nicer, this is okay and the methods are good to exist in its context. But they shouldn't necessarily all be part of the base image.

Don't get me wrong: if you and the Pharo community agree on lots of convenience methods, that is okay for me, and I find myself adding such methods to VA Smalltalk from time to time. I appreciate many of them being brought to VA ST in Grease.

Sometimes, this is simply a question of taste, sometimes it saves typing, sometimes it helps to improve readability of code.

But I wouldn't go so far to tell people they should better use such a method as a general advice. I would probably tell them: "look, here's a method I find much more elegant, you could *also* use that to save typing/increase readability".

Just my 2 cents, and highly off topic ;-)

Joachim

Am 01.11.16 um 08:43 schrieb phil@highoctane.be:
Because I grew tired of the isEmpty ifTrue: [ ] all over the place.
And ifEmpty has the right semantics for my use cases (like assignment).

I do not really care about portability, I am doing Pharo only.

Phil
On Mon, Oct 31, 2016 at 5:30 PM, jtuchel@objektfabrik.de <jtuchel@objektfabrik.de> wrote:
Am 31.10.16 um 15:59 schrieb phil@highoctane.be:

but you should use myCollection ifEmpty: [ ... ]

interesting. Why do you think so? what if you wanted your code to be portable across Smalltalk dialects?

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Best regards,
Igor Stasenko.