On Monday 29 Jun 2009 3:27:30 pm Benjamin L. Russell wrote:
Fascinating. So an object is an abstract representation of a gene, rather than a blueprint for a computational process.... This is a revelation.
"In computer terms, Smalltalk is a recursion on the notion of computer itself. Instead of dividing "computer stuff" into things each less strong than the whole--like data structures, procedures, and functions which are the usual paraphernalia of programming languages--each Smalltalk object is a recursion on the entire possibilities of the computer. " Alan Kay http://www.smalltalk.org/smalltalk/TheEarlyHistoryOfSmalltalk_Introduction.h...
An image is a like an Internet in a single bag of bits. You have all these tiny 'computers' exchanging messages with each other all the time to get 'work done'. Once Alan expressed regret for introducing the term 'object-oriented programming' because it downplayed the role of messages. Oops :-)!
Subbu