i would be pleased if someone writes his/hers opinion on the text below. in 
case you will do so then thanks in advance. jz.

the text below is from thread: "monopoly of classes".

On Wed, 28 May 2003 16:00:21 +0200, jan ziak wrote
> ok, lets see who wins this little biological war:
> 
> On 23 May 2003 15:04:02 +0200, Cees de Groot wrote
> > On Fri, 2003-05-23 at 12:23, jan ziak wrote:
> > > you are completely wrong in conjunction with the "inefficiency"  of 
> genetic 
> > > code i think. the recurrence of dna sequences in different individuals 
> has 
> > > its sense: it allows those individuals to communicate !!! it's not 
> > > inefficiency, it's natures magic behind that and the, according to your 
> > > reaction, "waste" has it's logic.
> > > 
> > Now, this is complete and utter nonsense and totally ignores what I
> > said. 
> > 
> > Please go off and count the number of copies of DNA you have (at 
> > least that'll keep you quiet for the next aeon or two ;-)). That's 
> > what you get with a totally classless system - a gross waste of resources.
> 
> i thought that you were saying that you disagree with the fact that the 
same 
> dna sequence is present in all cells of your body. now, it seems to me that 
> it was not your aim to note this kind of "waste" but this one: dna consists 
> of nucleotides which are not being used at all, they are "waste in your 
> sense".
> 
> > 
> > There's nothing 'magical' about nature. It's an imperfect system,
> > created by evolution, and it shows. 
> > 
> 
> why do you think that squeak is better then nature ? let's imagine that 
> squeak image is a dna sequence (that is, let's imagine that the content of 
> squeak's object memory is dna sequence). the sequence is composed from, as 
> opposed to molecules in biology, bits. so we have this mapping:
> 
>       object memory  <=> chromosome
>       bit            <=> nucleotide
> 
> just as dna is a linear sequence of nucleotides, object memory is a linear 
> sequence of bits (or bytes, if you like). so your objection was that nature 
> is imperfect, while human-created (= squeak's object memory here) is better.
> 
> however, the basic FACT about the object memory is that some bytes in it 
are 
> used more often then others. that is, just like in a dna sequence where 
some 
> nucleotides are used more often then others. in squeak, some bytes in the 
> object memory are not used at all (for example because the byte-code of the 
> method they are part of is updated). from this analogy, i draw the 
conclusion 
> that squeak's image is not perfect, it contains some kind of burden. the 
> situation in squeak is analogical to the situation in the dna of living 
> organisms (... now it's your turn to show that this is not so, otherwise 
you 
> will loose the war). so you cannot argument that a system with classes is 
> better than a system without them or than nature...look what the squeak 
> community has created: a "squeak-chromosome" which has the (imperfect) 
> properties of a biological cell chromosome.
> 
> now, let's make another analogy: let us liken the squeak running on my 
> machine to a biological cell. the squeak running on your machine is another 
> cell then. other squeakers run squeak on their machines also ... so we have 
a 
> lot of squeak-cells in the world. the behavior of those cells is, as 
defined 
> above, defined by a chromosome (squeak-chromosome) - the squeak-chromosome 
> (together with the environment it is situated in) is responsible for the 
> behavior of mine, yours and other squeak-cells.
> 
> the squeak-cells in the world communicate between themselves. the 
> communication is done in various ways: by change sets imports, by loading 
> projects, by copying an example source code from a squeak tutorial, etc. 
so, 
> we can say we have cells which communicate between themselves. however, 
just 
> like in nature, the chromosome which defines the behavior of each of the 
> squeak-cells (chromosome = the object memory content, aka squeak-chromosome 
> here) is merely identical - each two squeak-cells have very similar 
> chromosomes.
> 
> however, the similarity of squeak-cells is FULLY RATIONAL: it allows them 
to 
> communicate (that is, to interpret incoming data in the same way and as 
> expected).
> 
> to partly conclude:
> 1. the result of having a system with classes does not automatically
>    mean "better then created by nature"
> 2. cells are able to communicate because they have (something) in common
>    (i mean: a great number of cells, not just two...)
> 3. cell's behavior is coded in its chromosomes => dna of several cells
>    must be to some extent identical if they want to communicate
> 
> > > the reason that you cannot communicate with an ape is that the genetic 
> > > code which decribes the ape is DIFFERENT from the genetic code of
> > > you body.
> > > 
> > Oh, and when you are done counting your cells, please count the 
> > number of genes you have in common with an ape, and the number of 
> > genes you don't have in common. I think you're in for a surprise.
> > 
> 
> i could have used an example with a bee, or a bird, rather than with ape. 
> there is a problem with apes because one can make an objection that a human 
> outgrowed in a group of apes could understand them - this means that the 
> genome of a human and of an ape are compatible.
> 
> but replace the "ape" with "bee" or "bird" in my old text above. we can say 
> that the communication between a human and a bee will not be possible 
because 
> of the DIFFERENCE in genetic code. (well, ok, one can say that there is 
some 
> sort of communication between a man and a bee possible - instead of this 
sort 
> of communication, i mean a communication where the bee will grasp what i 
mean 
> and i will grasp what the bee means)
> 
> ok, me and an ape have a lot of common genes. it is above 99%. i watched a 
> document on a tv and they said that a banana has 50% of genes in common 
with 
> me. i want to make an objection against the "count the number of genes you 
> have in common with XXX" procedure. this will not help because dna, 
although 
> it is a LINEAR sequence of nucleotides, the relationship between 
nucleotides 
> (and genes) is NONLINEAR. so what do i get from the fact that i have 99% of 
> genes in common with an ape: nothing. because the relationships among genes 
> are not linear, i am unable to predict what will happen when i remove or 
add 
> one gene. i would like to recommend you to think in connectionism-like 
terms 
> when comparing two genetic codes.
> 
> the analogy of biological cell chromosome and squeak-chromosome will help 
in 
> this case also: just ask youself what will happen when you randomly change 
a 
> randomly chosen byte-code in squeak's image. my answer to this question is: 
> the outcome is not predictable.
> 
> > > replication of code physically throughout your 
> > > body, of *exactly the same code* throughout the bodies of countless 
other 
> > > living things has its sense, it's fully rational and meaningful. (as 
> einstein 
> > > said: "god does not play dice").
> > > 
> > > (note: don't you want to read 'A Mathematical Theory of Communication' 
by 
> > > Claude E. Shannon ? i think it would help you to take the same view as 
i 
> > > have).
> > >
> > Sorry, I don't want to take your view - if only because I don't 
> > follow you.
> > 
> 
> then just try it...for fun
> 
> > Let me try again - I hope you can come up with more nonsensical gems
> > like quoting Einstein on quantum mechanics (which, incidentally,
> > probably says more about Einstein's lack of understanding - willful 
> > or by some perceptual blindness - of Heisenberg's uncertainty principle
> > than about quantum mechanics) in a discussion on information stored 
> > on biological carries. 
> > 
> > Because your cells form a classless system, you have *exactly* the same
> > information copied something like a billion times throughout your body.
> > And every other living thing has copies of often the same 
> > information, copied as many times as they have cells. Now, I don't 
> > know how many copies of DNA float around on planet Earth (it's less 
> > than a Googol, but huge), but it strikes me as a gross efficiency. 
> > For starters, try to debug the code and then play an update to all 
> > copies ;-).
> > 
> 
> it is not true that because my cells form a classless system, i have 
> *exactly* the same information copied something like abillion times 
> throughout my body. anyway, how do you know that there cannot be something 
> like "class" defined in the dna - perhaps there are some classes in it. as 
> dna is not decoded yet (it has been only scanned) we do not know whether my 
> genome is classless.
> 
> > Now, why is this? Two reasons: the need for local access of the
> > information (in each cell - and I'm not starting about the copies inside
> > your ribozomes in each of your cells), and the lack of reflective
> > capabilities in the system called 'evolution'. Evolution cannot step
> > back and rethink a certain design (if we're into quoting books, I 
> > hope you've read Dawkins). 
> > 
> 
> why do you think that you can step back and rethink a certain design - 
> perhaps the nature is just cheating you to fulfill it's own selfish needs.
> 
> > Well, except for performance reasons (I have a replica of lots of 
> > code on each of the machines I run - it's called 'the operating 
> > system' and it wastes lots of diskspace and causes lots of 
> > management headaches, but it is faster), I don't see why we should 
> > attempt to mimick a system that is admirable in its results, but 
> > quite imperfect by design. 
> > 
> 
> yes, the performance reason is ok, i agree - but it is not the only reason.
> 
> hmm, you admire the results of natural evolution but you consider those 
> solutions to be imperfect - why don't you just exchange the 
word "imperfect" 
> by "quite perfect" and take a new fresh viewpoint of the problem.
> 
> > Neither did the people who built Smalltalk, that's why they *could*
> > decide that information could be stored 'off-site' (outside the 
> > object) and they could reflect on a better design. 
> > 
> 
> as i said above, i think squeakers have NOT created a system which is much 
> efficient than the one created by biological evolution. they have the same 
> properties both.
> 
> whatever you ever say, you cannot cheat evolution - you work for it...
> 
> > Anyway, except for bringing the whole mailing list off-topic, what do
> > you want to say? This is about Squeak development - do you have anything
> > concrete in the space of 'problems with class systems' or 'a proposal
> > for a classless Squeak'?