Working on Pharo Smalltalk: BPatterns: Rewrite Engine with Smalltalk Style

4 hours ago

The rewrite engine, introduced by John Brant and Don Roberts in 1997, provides AST-level matching and rewriting with significant power.
Despite its power, the syntax of the rewrite engine is difficult to remember, even for simple tasks like replacing deprecated messages.
BPatterns offer a fluent, Smalltalk-native API on top of the rewrite engine, using ordinary Smalltalk blocks as patterns.
BPatterns eliminate the need for remembering complex syntax by providing a more approachable and scriptable interface.
BPatterns allow for refining patterns explicitly using the #with: message, enabling more precise matching and rewriting.
Message patterns in BPatterns can be refined and configured with arbitrary conditions, making them highly flexible.
BPatterns do not yet expose every feature of the rewrite engine but support many, including full method patterns via #bmethod.
The GitHub repository provides full details on BPatterns, and a future blog post will discuss a simplified deprecation API built on top of BPatterns.

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