On Thu, 28 Feb 2002 16:30:39 +0100, Stefano Mazzocchi <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > Any method call in python is done thru reflection. Calling a > > method in python means looking in the attribute hashmap of the > > object for a function object of that name. You can modify the > > values of the hashmap and even add or delete methods at runtime. > > > > Python interfaces, are defined thru documentation only, not a > > static type system. That's very handy for a language, which's > > greatest strength is rapid prototying. > > Yes, well, might be handy for rapid prototiping, but I consider it a > limitation because I consider strong type safety a must in order > create solid architectures. Not really. Do you know MacOS X? Do you know the language on which it's built? It's called Objective-C, and is an object-oriented, C-based, compiled language, very similar with Smalltalk in its dynamic nature. The compiler does type checking, but at runtime you can do whatever you want with objects. You can even send messages to objects that don't implement them. You'd think this is not a useful feature, but it was on NeXTSTEP (the precursor of MacOS X) where I saw more than 10 years ago the best distributed objects technology I've seen so far. Remote objects would appear as local objects in you application, and you could import any object from a remote application, without having to have the system create any class stubs for you. The implementation was done in only two classes, Connection and Proxy. Proxy was a special class that implemented no methods at all (well, except a special one). It would instead be used to represent a remote object. When you send a message to this class, the special method would be invoked. As arguments to this method you had the original name of the method that was invoked, plus all the parameters of the call. This method would use the associated Connection instance to send them to the remote application, where the actual invocation happened. The results would be simply returned over the wire, and returned from the local method invocation as if everything was local. Many other things, including the GUI framework, with the best architecture I've seen ever, benefited from this dynamic and un-typed language. The whole system was robust, easy to use and to program more than 10 years ago. Even now, beside MacOS X, you can hardly see systems so nicely architected as this one. I think they rightly say that languages shape the way we think. Greetings, -- Ovidiu Predescu <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Monitor/7464/ (GNU, Emacs, other stuff) --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
