Alan Kay wrote:
I think your "intriguing possibility" is a better way to go overall. I think tiny runtime resources are great, but I don't see why one shouldn't always be able to invoke any or all of the full power of the system when wanted or needed. (Having said this a few times over the years, it's still quite interesting how much hold the old "program time" vs. "runtime" distinction has today, even with strong examples of their union, as with LISP and Smalltalk.)
It sounds like Microsoft ".NET" with C# is heading in this direction (objects dynamically invoked over the Internet). It may just be talk, and MS may ultimately fall short of that ideal, but it would be very unfortunate if Squeak did not get this capability at least a couple of years before ".NET".
- Stephen