On Mon, Oct 25, 2010 at 1:59 PM, Lawson English <lenglish5 at cox.net> wrote:

> In the Wikipedia entry on Smalltalk, there is this line in the history
> section, 3rd paragraph, added roughly a year ago:  "...Smalltalk-80 added
> [[metaclass]]es, to help maintain the "everything is an object" (except
> private instance variables) paradigm by associating properties and behavior
> with individual classes, ..."
>
>
> Is this one of those esoteric details that mere mortals are not meant to
> understand, or is this an error?
>

"(except private instance variables)" looks like a dig or a jibe.  I would
have put it

 "...Smalltalk-80 added [[metaclass]]es, to help maintain the "everything is
an object" paradigm by allowing classes to have their own specific state and
behavior, ..."

Perhaps they were trying to say that because Smalltalk lacks private
instance variables Smalltalk objects are not true objects, which is I
suppose arguable.  But it makes poor sense to state that private instance
variables aren't objects; public inst vars aren't objects either.

best,
Eliot


>
> Lawson
>
>
>
>
>
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