Just because code definition happens as part of the runtime of the whole system does not mean that any piece of code does not have a code definition time during which one could arrange to, for example, do macro substitution.
On 7/20/07, Bert Freudenberg bert@freudenbergs.de wrote:
On Jul 20, 2007, at 11:57 , Marcin Tustin wrote:
On 7/20/07, Bert Freudenberg bert@freudenbergs.de wrote: On Jul 20, 2007, at 11:31 , Marcin Tustin wrote:
On 7/20/07, Bert Freudenberg bert@freudenbergs.de wrote: On Jul 20, 2007, at 8:52 , Louis Moon wrote:
...and yes, of course, there is a runtime.
Well, you could say there is only runtime. Which makes the term useless, as it implies some sort of opposite.
Then how would you refer to runtime? In any case, we can oppose it to code-definition time. Nothing exciting may happen then, but it's worth being able to talk about it.
There is no technical distinction. All you do when "defining code" is creating an instance and adding it to a dictionary in some object. That's no different from other activities you do at "runtime".
The instance might be an instance of a metaclass and the dictionary might be held in a global variable called Smalltalk. Or the instance could happen to be a CompiledMethod instance, and the dictionary would be the method dictionary of a class object. So what?
Sending messages, creating instances, storing them in fields of other objects, wouldn't you call that "runtime" if you insist on that term?
- Bert -
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