On 28/07/2009, at 11:35 AM, Richard O'Keefe wrote:
It's true that the abstract speaks of "a more biological
scheme of protected universal cells interacting only through
messages that could mimic any desired behavior", but that's
basically _it_ for biology, if we are to believe Kay, and
even then, "its semantics are a bit like having thousands of
and thousands of comptuers all hooked together by a very fast
network" and "Philosophically, Smalltalk's objects have much
in common with the monads of Leibnitz" (bringing us neatly
back to Haskell (:-)).
But Richard (or am I arguing with Kay?) - monads don't interact.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monadology
I'd take that to be their defining characteristic - Leibniz is trying
to overcome Cartesian mind/body dualism here.
Perhaps Smalltalk objects are regulated by pre-established
harmonies... and have no need to talk to each other. Or perhaps that
is the part that lies outside Kay's identification, in which case one
might say the ontologies of monads and Smalltalk have superficial
similarities but the deeper structure diverges significantly. (I think
my point is well-defended by the above wikipedia article - the OO
insights are thin on the ground, and are at least quite tangled.)
How are you going to relate Leibniz's monads and Haskell's? I can't
find my way, neatly or otherwise. :-P
Ah, I see, Haskell has an interface to the best of all possible
worlds... :-)
cheers
peter
--
http://peteg.org/
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