paolo.bernardi.67 <at> gmail.com <paolo.bernardi.67 <at> gmail.com> writes:

Sorry, I'm not so smart when quoting...

Il 24/11/2013 15.39, Levente Uzonyi wrote:

...

Since message sends are late bound, it means that if you want to cache something, then you have to do it yourself.

I know (or I think I know) what late binding means, but I can't figure the connection with the topic of caching the return value. In other words: if st was NOT late binding, things were different about the to cache or not to cache some return value? Can you clear to me the idea?

molte grazie (= many thanks)

As Levente said it: the implementation of Time could change entirely, such that previous instance of Time could loose their meaning (for example, you add/removed/renamed some instance variables, or changed expected interface for those inst. var.).

If Time can change, then you'd better not create potentially obsolete instances in advance.

If you have a version of asTime that you can guaranty unchanged, then you can perform early binding, that is immediately evaluate the message send to the constant, and hardcode the result of message sent as another constant...

But even with such early binding, things could go tricky, what should this respond?

^'6:30am' asTime class allInstances size