On Sunday 13 February 2005 4:06 pm, Alan Lovejoy wrote:
> Ideally, modules should also provide for dynamic binding (and not require
> static linking.)  In other words, a user should not have to load a module
> into an image "by hand" in order to use it.  The module should be
> dynamically located and loaded into the image when referenced. 
>
> It would be 
> bad enough for a language such as C to require that all "modules" be
> "statically liniked." For the quintessential dynamic languge Smalltalk to
> do so would be criminal.  Such dynamically-linked Samltallk modules would
> be completely analogous to  a UNIX ".so" or Windows ".dll" file--and would
> introduce all the same issues, all of which would be susceptible to the
> same universe of possible solutions.  I suggest looking at way that
> NextStep/MacOSX handle these issues.

Actually, GNU Smalltalk has what looks like a very simple solution with its 
Autoload and AutoloadClass. These are objects that take the place of class 
objects (and their corresponding metaclass objects) and mostly just overload 
doesNotUnderstand: to load the appropriate package.

-- 
Ned Konz
http://bike-nomad.com/squeak/