[Help-smalltalk] criticism of the new syntax

[Derek Zhou]

Hi Paolo and all,
It is great to see the venerable gnu-smalltalk getting a new face lift and 
many exciting new features. However, I have to say that the new syntax leave 
much to be desired. Granted the old syntax has some problems (too much '!') 
but the new syntax just introduce some problems of it's own:
1, too much indention. I don't think the java-ish whole-class-as-a-block 
syntax is a very good idea for all but the trival classes. Indention doesn't 
really help for long blocks. 
2, Now I need to have a category pragma for all the 3 line long method? With 
the old syntax casual smalltalker like me don't need to know about pragmas at 
all; besides I think pragmas look ugly by themselves.
I understand the appeal of the new syntax for all the java/c# pogrammers out 
there; however I myself dig c, objc and c++ so I like to see something like 
this:
Object subclass: Person [
    | name age |
] 
Person class >> category: 'instance creation' [
        new [
                ...
        ]
...
]
Person >> category: 'printing' [
        printOn: aStream [
                ...
        ]
...
]
Person >> radomLooseMethod [
        ...
]
I have to stick with the old syntax for now. Please tell me the old syntax is 
not going away.
Best regards
Derek