On 13-Feb-06, at 4:09 PM, Wolfgang Helbig wrote:
Now, my question. Are SmallIntegers, Characters and Symbols in Squeak immutable objects in the sense of the above definition, i, e. not destroyable? If not, why and when was it changed in Squeak. If they are still immutable, why is this planned to be changed?
SmallIntegers, Characters and Symbols are indeed immutable in Squeak. However, numbers in general are not quite the same; it is entirely possible to have several LargeIntegers with the same numeric value and that is one quite obvious case where using #== instead of #= could provide a surprise. All one has to do is remember tat #== means 'is the same object' and #= means 'is an equal object' to see that confusion is not smart.
tim -- tim Rowledge; tim@rowledge.org; http://www.rowledge.org/tim If you think nobody cares about you, try missing a couple of payments.