[Squeakland] Computer Language Definitions and Intelligibility

[Greg Smith]

I just started reading Alan Kay's forward to the book,

SQUEAK:
OBJECT-ORIENTED
DESIGN WITH
MULTIMEDIA
APPLICATIONS

and came across the phrase, "extreme late binding".

This presented the same problem I always seem to encounter when  
trying to learn any technical subject, from scratch.  Having no prior  
background in the subject under discussion, I have no familiarity  
with the insider lingo that inevitably exists in each and every text  
on the written on the subject.

At this point, encountering a phrase which, to me, is unintelligible,  
I have two options  -  close the article or do some research to find  
the full meaning of the phrase.  I did so, using Google, and found  
quite a few articles that use and refer to this phrase, but each and  
every one that I looked at, though using the phrase, never defined  
the phrase in plain English for the benefit of  the understanding of  
the uninitiated.

This just strengthens my view that if endeavors like computer  
programming are ever to pass out of the hands of the priesthood and  
into the hands of the layman, then something's got to be done about  
the methods used to transfer this knowledge.

I still haven't got an inkling about the concept of "extreme late  
binding", though I wish I did.

Greg Smith

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