is squeak really object oriented ?

Andreas Raab andreas.raab at gmx.de
Thu May 22 20:15:44 UTC 2003


Yayy! What beautiful heretic questions ;-)))

BTW, if you are interested in this area you should give eToys a try. They do
many of the things you're describing, e.g., make objects tangible and
therefore become more oriented to dealing with objects instead of text
input.

Cheers,
  - Andreas

> -----Original Message-----
> From: squeak-dev-bounces at lists.squeakfoundation.org 
> [mailto:squeak-dev-bounces at lists.squeakfoundation.org] On 
> Behalf Of jan ziak
> Sent: Thursday, May 22, 2003 9:55 PM
> To: squeak-dev at lists.squeakfoundation.org
> Subject: is squeak really object oriented ?
> 
> 
> hi. I've got a strange question: is squeak really an object 
> oriented system 
> or it only claims it is? the point of the question is that 
> instead of working 
> with objects, i work mostly with text. the objects are in 
> fact only in my 
> head, as a consequence of reading sources of objects which are in the 
> browser. but the objects are not tangible, i cannot see them. 
> for example, 
> let's take an instance of an OrderedCollection: this object 
> is in fact not an 
> object but a textual representation of it, I cannot see the 
> collection on my 
> workspace and must simulate all its behavior on my own and 
> imagine it in my 
> head.
> 
> another problem is that when i am writing the source code of 
> an object, i do 
> not work with objects again. i only manipulate text and imagine those 
> objects, but the objects are not on my workspace. i think that object 
> oriented programming should look like working with objects 
> and not with text.
> 
> so, is squeak for work with objects or with text ?
> 
> another example: suppose that, after 3 hours of hard 
> experimentation, i have 
> finally obtained a list of numbers which contain the results of my 
> experiments. the numbers are of great signifance to me 
> because i am totally 
> unable to replicate them (because i do not preciselly 
> remember how i obtained 
> them for example). let the numbers be concentrated in an instance of 
> OrderedCollection. so i have an ordered collection instance 
> and numbers in 
> it. as next, i want to incorporate my numeric list in a 
> source code of some 
> class. wouldn't it be logical to simply insert a reference to 
> my list into 
> the source code in places where i want to use my list object? 
> in think that 
> the squeak system answers: "no it wouldn't. you must make a textual 
> representation of your object and ...".
> 
> so, are we working with objects or just manipulating text ?
> 
> giving objects names and them using those names is just one 
> way of how to 
> interconnect those objects. i want to work with objects not 
> with their names, 
> so why should i give names to objects anyway.
> 
> jz.
> 
> 



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