Hello list... Still haven't been able to compile GST from git sources ;( but life goes one...
Currently Reading Alan Lovejoy's "Smalltalk: Getting The Message The Essentials of Message-Oriented Programming with Smalltalk". I'm not grokking this paragraph: "Because of dynamic message dispatch, the semantics of sending a message to an object depend absolutely on the object that receives the message. The same message may be interpreted quite differently by different objects, due to the fact that each object may use a different method namespace in order to lookup a method based on the selector of a message, and so may associate a different method with the same message selector. Consequently, a message can be thought of as an abstract function call which will result in the execution of whatever concrete function (subroutine) is chosen by the object that receives the message. The idea is that a message should name the logical function to be computed, but the object receiving the message should decide how best to physically compute the desired result. The universal, pervasive application of this distinction between logical function (semantics) and physical function (implementation strategy) is the central point of object oriented programming, as defined and envisioned by Dr. Kay." Would one of you fine Smalltalkers explain the above in plain language - 1 or 2 sentences would be good. I'm assuming that I _need_ to understand what dynamic message dispatch means and how it works before I can proceed intelligently. TIA... -- duke _______________________________________________ help-smalltalk mailing list [email protected] http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/help-smalltalk
