the monopoly of classes

jan ziak ziakjan at host.sk
Fri May 23 10:23:54 UTC 2003


On 23 May 2003 09:08:10 +0200, Cees de Groot wrote
> On Fri, 2003-05-23 at 03:23, jan ziak wrote:
> > yes, but in class-ified object oriented systems (like smalltalk) the 
> > procedure you just described cannot be performed, because it is 
not "first 
> > make some objects and if obvious then make a common class object" but it 
> > is "make a common class object in any case".
> > 
> That's called 'efficiency'. As Andreas said, the reason to make it 
> so is performance; I say the reason to make it the default is in 
> order to prevent everyone from reinventing the wheel.
> 
> That said, it's just the default. Please stop bouncing the same question
> over and over again, and see what you can do in Smalltalk by subclassing
> 'nil', making your own metaclasses, or try to make objects that describe
> their own behavior. I've never tried it, because I think it's a 
> futile experiment, but I think Smalltalk should make even the latter 
> possible.
> 
> The fact that it is (probably) possible and the fact that the only 
> two classless OO languages I know (Self and ECMAscript) aren't 
> exactly huge successes should indicate that maybe there is something 
> to this whole class businesss.
> 

i disagree with you that Self is a purely classless OO language, because each 
object has its parent (a field pointing to some parental object). the 
parental reference seems to me to be very similar to "super" (which points to 
the super-class of an object) in smalltalk.

> Let me try an analogy: in the real world, all physical objects share 
> in essence a common superclass, namely the class that would describe 
> the behavior of physical objects in terms of the various laws of 
> physics. In essence, Object/Class/Metaclass lay down the laws of 
> physics for a Smalltalk environment - because it's a virtual world,
>  we're free to define these laws, which is cool. To some extent -
>  and I urge you to probe the boundaries here, you might be surprised 
> - we can even change them, which is even cooler but unsettling to 
> some ;-). 
> 
> If you don't like the current laws of physics in Squeak, you should not
> whine about it on the list. Rather, you should modify Squeak to suit
> your needs (it's all there for you to play with), and *show* us that
> 'your' way is 'better'. Or, of course, start doing your development work
> in ECMAscript...
> 
> (the second analogy up my sleeve about Object is that you share a 
> lot of behavior with all other objects of the class 'living thing',
>  encoded in your DNA. AFAIK, you can extract a surprisingly large 
> core of common code shared by all living things, but certainly 
> shared by all living things of the class 'mammal'. Now, that mother 
> nature replicates your code physically throughout your body and 
> *exactly the same code* throughout the bodies of countless other 
> living things just indicates to me that biological systems are 
> hugely inefficient at times, and bless yourself lucky that you 
> possess the power to abstract and move this duplication away into 
> some meta-level objects).

you are completely wrong in conjunction with the "inefficiency"  of genetic 
code i think. the recurrence of dna sequences in different individuals has 
its sense: it allows those individuals to communicate !!! it's not 
inefficiency, it's natures magic behind that and the, according to your 
reaction, "waste" has it's logic.

the reason that you cannot communicate with an ape is that the genetic code 
which decribes the ape is DIFFERENT from the genetic code of you body.

people are able to communicate only because the genetic codes forming them 
have something in COMMON. this is also the reason why are the same genetic 
sequences present in the numerous cells of your body - the commonality allows 
those cells to communicate. replication of code physically throughout your 
body, of *exactly the same code* throughout the bodies of countless other 
living things has its sense, it's fully rational and meaningful. (as einstein 
said: "god does not play dice").

(note: don't you want to read 'A Mathematical Theory of Communication' by 
Claude E. Shannon ? i think it would help you to take the same view as i 
have).




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