compile: .... methods should return CompiledMethod object

[demarey]

Strangely, all compile: .... methods return a selector. They should return the CompiledMethod object.

[privat]

Do you have an example?

(Smalltalk compiler compile: 'foo ^1') class >>> CompiledMethod 

[demarey]

ClassDescription>>#compile:classified:notifying:
String compile: 'foo' classified: 'foo' notifying: nil >>> "#foo"

[privat]

My guess it's that a legacy thing and since that there are a lot of clients that expect that such methods return selectors there is no real gain to change that. Maybe @MarcusDenker knows the history better.

[MarcusDenker]

yes, this is legacy.. I wonder if it is not better to add new APIs and keep the old ones compatible

[privat]

I opened a meta-issue #12883 to rant about the compilation API for instance :)

[privat]

My position on this specific issue: compile:* is legacy, maybe we could deprecate it? The way forward is the compiler message. But the API is still under heavy changes. It could be a Pahro12 goal

String compile: 'foo' classified: 'foo' notifying: nil >>> "#foo"

should become something like

String compiler protocol: 'foo'; install: 'foo' >>> aCompiledMethod