On Mon, Oct 17, 2011 at 1:35 AM, Marcus Denker <[email protected]>wrote:
> > On Oct 17, 2011, at 10:25 AM, Guido Stepken wrote: > > > Hi, there! > > > > I had a nice conversation about Smalltalk among software architects: > > > > I claim smalltalk to be the only programming system, where source is an > object too, with all advantages and disadvantages! > > > > Am i right? > > > No, source is ascii text in Smalltak, and it's on the disk even. > Hang on. While I agree that the ideas in sub-method reflection really do make source an interesting object it is still the case that method sources and class comments /are/ objects, albeit only strings, even if implemented in an odd way with storage outside the image (but a really useful way since it provides for crash recovery). There are few other systems in which, in the running program, one can access the source of a method, bit in Smalltalk I can say thisContext method getSource, and that is I think Guido's point. > The only thing that is objects are classes and methods. Below of a full > method, the reflective model stops. > (you can ask the compiler to make an AST from the dead code on disk, but > that model is not causally connected > and thus not reflective, and it's only there when you create it. This you > can do in any language, though). > > Of course it is interesting what happes when one fixes that... > > "Sub-Method Reflection": > > http://www.jot.fm/issues/issue_2007_10/paper14.pdf > > Marcus > > -- > Marcus Denker -- http://marcusdenker.de > > > -- best, Eliot
