copy yourself ?

jan ziak ziakjan at host.sk
Thu May 22 20:33:59 UTC 2003


hi. i would like to ask whether some squeaker has ever seen an object which 
is capable of copying itself. for example, i have a glass in front of me - 
certainly an object - but i have never seen any glass copying itself in front 
of me when i say "copy yourself" to it. in contrary, i have only seen people 
or machines capable of copying a glass. the point is that i do not believe 
that any object could copy itself. even DNA which is said to have replicating 
capabilities does not replicate itself as such, but requires a niche capable 
of replicating it. so why, in smalltalk, almost every object can copy itself 
when i send a message to it - it seems absurd to me. doesn't it also to you?

a second problem is that the copying process depends on particularities of 
situation in which someone or something want's to copy an object. copying is 
context dependent. so why has every object in smalltalk only one method for 
copying (well it has three types of copy-methods but the point is that the 
number and meaning of them fixed).

wouldn't it be more rational to have objects capable of constructing copies 
of objects? 



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