On Sun, Aug 28, 2011 at 7:47 PM, Marcus Denker <marcus.denker@inria.fr> wrote:
Back in the days, we were virtually crucified for introducing the Beeper class along the same reasoning...
The Beeper actually got very depressed due to having his very existance being questioned.
"I am just the result of a random refactoring" he was complaining "maybe I should just just delete myself and everyone will be happy".
(you know, reflection *is* dangerous! There has been a lot of talk to make reflection more secure... for a reason!).
To cheer him up, I gave him the lead role in a real, peer reviewed Paper:
    http://scg.unibe.ch/archive/papers/Denk08bMetaContextLNBIP.pdf
The Beeper thus was the first Class to be really "Meta" in the history of Objects. What a thrill. In an interview, the Beeper said: "You know, being meta is hard to decribe... Classes claim to be Meta all the time. But I doubt they ever really are Meta. Being Meta is special. The whole System looks different when meta!"
Thank you Marcus, it is very funny :-) -- Damien Cassou http://damiencassou.seasidehosting.st "Lambdas are relegated to relative obscurity until Java makes them popular by not having them." James Iry