[Newbies] Defining a class at runtime

[Marcin Tustin]

Just because code definition happens as part of the runtime of the whole
system does not mean that any piece of code does not have a code definition
time during which one could arrange to, for example, do macro substitution.

On 7/20/07, Bert Freudenberg <bert at freudenbergs.de> wrote:
>
> On Jul 20, 2007, at 11:57 , Marcin Tustin wrote:
>
> > On 7/20/07, Bert Freudenberg <bert at freudenbergs.de> wrote:
> > On Jul 20, 2007, at 11:31 , Marcin Tustin wrote:
> >
> > >
> > >
> > > On 7/20/07, Bert Freudenberg <bert at freudenbergs.de> wrote: On Jul
> > > 20, 2007, at 8:52 , Louis Moon wrote:
> >
> > > ...and yes, of course, there is a runtime.
> >
> > Well, you could say there is only runtime. Which makes the term
> > useless, as it implies some sort of opposite.
> >
> > Then how would you refer to runtime? In any case, we can oppose it
> > to code-definition time. Nothing exciting may happen then, but it's
> > worth being able to talk about it.
>
> There is no technical distinction. All you do when "defining code" is
> creating an instance and adding it to a dictionary in some object.
> That's no different from other activities you do at "runtime".
>
> The instance might be an instance of a metaclass and the dictionary
> might be held in a global variable called Smalltalk. Or the instance
> could happen to be a CompiledMethod instance, and the dictionary
> would be the method dictionary of a class object. So what?
>
> Sending messages, creating instances, storing them in fields of other
> objects, wouldn't you call that "runtime" if you insist on that term?
>
> - Bert -
>
>
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