On Mon, Oct 25, 2010 at 1:59 PM, Lawson English <lenglish5@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