Hi,

The classes are a good idea but they are not a must for an Object Oriented
environment.

In Smalltalk/Squeak the classes represent the concepts (the forms in
Plato's theory).  The relation between the objects and their classes is a
isA defintion.  And you know, we use to say "everything is an Object"... so
make sense that every concept is a sub-concept of Object.

English: "Everything is an Object"
Smalltalk: Object allSubInstances allSatisfy:[:each | each isKindOf: Object]

Cheers,

Diego


> On Thu, 22 May 2003, jan ziak wrote:
>
>> hi again. i want to ask why must everything in squeak be a subclass of
>> something. do you think it's rational?
>
> What logic would there be in doing it any other way?
>
> In a comprehensively OO system like Squeak, it makes a lot of sense to
> have a root class that is the ultimate superclass of everything else.
> ProtoObject and Object provide a lot of base support to the entire
> system; C++ has show us what a no-root system is like- why would we
> want that? Why recreate the same functionality in every new root class
> you create?
>
> Again I ask- what other way would you do it?  With no root class? What
> advantages are there in that?  I see having a root class simply as the
> only logical thing to do in a system like Squeak.  It doesn't confine
> the user or programmer one bit, but provides a tremendous amount of
> convenience and consistence.  Losing it would take this away but
> without providing any new positives.
>
> Regards,
> Aaron
>
>  Aaron Reichow  ::  UMD ACM Pres  ::  http://www.d.umn.edu/~reic0024/
> "one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws"  :: m. l. king
> jr.