Generics
Phil Hudson
phil.hudson at iname.com
Sun Sep 28 07:56:16 UTC 2003
Thanks Brian. I thought this might be it.
>
>On Saturday, Sep 27, 2003, at 18:05 America/Denver, Phil Hudson wrote:
>
>> Are generic/template/parameterized/typesafe collections available in
>> Smalltalk? I've had a look and can't see anything in the Squeak distro
>> or
>> SqueakMap.
>
>Certainly not in the 'strongly-typed language' sense of it. :-)
>
>>
>> Or am I just not "getting it"? Is it just not "thinking in Smalltalk"
>> to
>> insist on a type?
>>
>>
>>
>Yes, this is probably true. Maybe try thinking in terms of Vocabulary.
>Since everything is a message sent to an instance or class, then the
>idea of "compatiple types" is determined by whether the the receiver of
>the message understands the message. If class A understands all the
>messages sent to it by class B, then they can be used in an
>interchangeable way (in terms of message sends), and so can be thought
>of as the same type. Of course, you can add methods to classes at will,
>giving a class a larger and larger vocabulary, enabling it to be 'type
>compatible' with many other classes.
>
>In summary, there is no type. Only messages. ;-)
>
>(I'm a relative newbie to OOP in general and Smalltalk specifically,
>but this is the way my procedurally trained mind puts it into
>perspective)
>
>I'm sure many of the other learned gentlemen on this list can explain
>things more satisfactorily!
>
>Have fun!
>
>Brian
>
>
>
>
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