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[Python-Dev] [OT] implicit return values

Xavier Morel catch-all at masklinn.net
Fri Sep 4 08:34:44 CEST 2009 
On 3 Sep 2009, at 23:33 , Greg Ewing wrote:
Xavier Morel wrote:
>
>> Methods yes (and that's one of the few Smalltalk design "features"  
>> I  consider truly dumb, considering it has message cascading)
>
> Cascading is something different -- it's for sending
> multiple messages to the *same* receiver. It's not
> dumb to have both.
I know what cascading is for. The issue is that with message cascading  
+ the "yourself" message, you *never* need to chain on self (you can  
just cascade and -- if you end up needing the instance to drop down at  
the end of the cascade -- send `yourself`).

Chaining on self is completely redundant in smalltalk as the purpose  
of this pattern is *also* to send a sequence of messages to the same  
receiver (something message cascading already handles & guarantees).

Therefore defaulting method to self-chaining is very dumb and serves  
no purpose whatsoever. It doesn't make the language easier to use,  
less verbose or more practical. It just wastes return values.
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