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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.