smalltalk76

Jecel Assumpcao Jr jecel at merlintec.com
Fri Mar 30 23:49:20 UTC 2001


On Thursday 29 March 2001 20:35, Alan Kay wrote:
> Most importantly, class Class was an instance of itself, and class
> Object was a superclass of itself. The "magic of microcode" was what
> allowed those two relations to be circular.

Since you only follow the class pointer once, the first circular 
relation isn't a problem. But it would seem to me that a circular 
superclass relation would require a special termination test just as 
much as the current nil superclass one does. I would be very much 
interested in knowing what you can do in microcode that can't be done 
in assembly or C, specially since I am currently building a microcoded 
machine!

> The explicit metaclasses
> of Smalltalk-80 really don't do enough work to justify their
> complexity IMNSHO.

They allow class methods and class variables (or is that class instance 
variables?), which I don't think are a big deal either.

> But, wait until after this summer .....

Summer is just over down here (Brazil), so do I get a sneak preview? ;-)

But seriously, I am trying to define a very simple object model 
(something that is to Self like what Self is to Smalltalk) that is 
clean and poweful and could be explained to an interested 12 year old 
kid. I can be as nostalgic as the next guy and have been revisting the 
work I have done in object oriented Logos and Smalltalk, Lisp machine 
ideas and other stuff. See

  http://groups.yahoo.com/group/self-interest/message/1022

-- Jecel





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