Musings about modularity and programming in the large
itsme213
itsme213 at hotmail.com
Thu Jan 24 19:50:03 UTC 2008
"Andreas Raab" <andreas.raab at gmx.de> wrote
>> It is about metaclasses not being "special" or hidden or singletons, but
>> being just as user-accessible, definable, instantiable, and extensible as
>> any other object (and class). It is a much simpler meta-structure than
>> Smalltalk-80.
>
> I'll have to admit I never liked this model too much. One of the killer
> features of the Smalltalk-80 model is that it allows you to add features
> to the meta class easily (by just clicking on the meta-tab in the browser)
> be that class instance variables, instances creation, utility, example, or
> test methods.
I agree that is extremely convenient. But could it be thought of as good
tool / browser design? Even on Cointe's model, could a tool that knows it is
editing a class make it just as painless to
1. select a metaclass
2. create a metaclass on the fly
3. do 1 & 2 with on-the-fly customizations to ((meta)class)instVars,
methods...
(Ruby's instance-level customizations do things similar to 1 & 2; our
instances would be classes).
I can imagine (newbie alert :-), a similar "class" tab with similar
convenient behaviors. Plus the added benefit, specially for those interested
in meta-modeling and DSLs, of all full access to any levels of "metaclass"
definitions.
Sophie
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