Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site arizona.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxj!ihnp4!arizona!budd From: budd@arizona.UUCP (tim budd) Newsgroups: net.lang.st80 Subject: cascades complaint Message-ID: <16722@arizona.UUCP> Date: Sat, 20-Oct-84 23:17:19 EDT Article-I.D.: arizona.16722 Posted: Sat Oct 20 23:17:19 1984 Date-Received: Sun, 21-Oct-84 15:21:40 EDT Organization: Dept of CS, U of Arizona, Tucson Lines: 14 It seems to me the designers of smalltalk-80 made a mistake in making semicolons have very low precedence. That is, suppose I write 3.14159 a b ; c d My reading of the blue book seems to indicate that this is the same as ( 3.14159 a b ; c ) d That is, the message d is sent to the result of 3.14159 a b, not to the result of 3.14159 a b c. As far as I can tell, there is no easy way to get the effect of (pardon the awful syntax, as i say there is no substitute) 3.14159 a b ; ( c d ) I can't argue that one way is any more ``natural'' than the other, i have at times wanted something to match both interpretations. However given the current scheme getting the alternate is quite difficult, whereas if semicolons grouped more strongly getting the current interpretation would be merely a matter of inserting a pair of parenthesis.