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Epic Answer - Avoiding If statements (stackoverflow.com)
9 points by sidmkp96 4841 days ago
3 comments

It's easy - use switch/case statements!

But seriously, isn't it true that Smalltalk doesn't have if statements?

Yes. Smalltalk has the ifTrue: and ifFalse: methods on the Boolean object.

  x > y ifTrue: [ Transcript show: 'Truthy' ]
So it is using polymorphism as the main mechanism. The True object implements ifTrue: by evaluating the block argument and implements ifFalse: by doing nothing. The False object does the opposite.
His idea in the second edit is similar to what is done with a lot of methods in Cocoa and Cocoa Touch and so on: http://cocoadev.com/wiki/MethodSwizzling
Wouldn't that be considered a state machine? I've done something with an audio player. Each state was a different class.