[Newbies] Re: Smalltalk Data Structures and Algorithms

K. K. Subramaniam subbukk at gmail.com
Mon Jun 29 11:11:22 UTC 2009


On Monday 29 Jun 2009 3:27:30 pm Benjamin L. Russell wrote:
> Fascinating.  So an object is an abstract representation of a gene,
> rather than a blueprint for a computational process....  This is a
> revelation.
"In computer terms, Smalltalk is a recursion on the notion of computer itself. 
Instead of dividing "computer stuff" into things each less strong than the 
whole--like data structures, procedures, and functions which are the usual 
paraphernalia of programming languages--each Smalltalk object is a recursion 
on the entire possibilities of the computer. " Alan Kay
http://www.smalltalk.org/smalltalk/TheEarlyHistoryOfSmalltalk_Introduction.html

An image is a like an Internet in a single bag of bits. You have all these 
tiny 'computers' exchanging messages with each other all the time to get 'work 
done'. Once Alan expressed regret for introducing the term 'object-oriented 
programming' because it downplayed the role of messages. Oops :-)!

Subbu


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