Smalltalk mysticism

Aaron Reichow reic0024 at d.umn.edu
Thu Jul 13 00:59:32 UTC 2000


All this discussion of Metaclasses and 'aught' become: nil has turned on
again the odd philosophical feelings Smalltalk brings to my brain.  Does
anyone else share this?  Let me elaborate...

The Smalltalk system seems to share some cosmological, religio-
philosophical with the rest of the universe.  For example the root of all
Classes (things) is Object (ether).  To make matters even more
interesting, Object's superclass is ProtoObject (most basic form of the ether),
and the superclass of that?  nil.  Nothing.  Nothingness.  Metaclasses,
those which define the meaning of meaning, are the parents of their own
children's parents.  Man.  This stuff blows my mind.  It really is beautiful.

Yes, this is pretty off the wall, but it's always there when I'm coding in
Smalltalk, something that has never visited me when programming
in other languages.

Any other thoughts?
Aaron





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