On Aug 25, 2006, at 2:03 PM, Norman Palardy wrote:
Nothing to do with whether the language is compiled or not, other
than all kinds of things being easier to implement in an
interpreted language.
Popular compiled languages I know of that support first-class
classes are: Java, C#, Perl, Python (the latter two compile to
byte-code engines).
Any that are compiled to machine code languages ?
These all have a VM or are interpreted in some fashion
There are other, less popular ones. In fact, I know of only two
OOP languages that *don't* support first-class classes (or
prototypes, which provides equivalent functionality). C++ actually
stands out for being a popular OOP language without first-class
classes.
Right.
There seems to be some kind of relationship between being a
language compiled to machine code and not having first class classes.
This correlation is purely accidental. Most of the really popular
languages (with the exception of Objective-C, as you noted) that
support first-class classes use virtual machines, but there many less
well-known OO languages that compile to native code (eg Dylan, OCaml)
that provide robust first-class classes.
Objective C _might_ permit this but I do not have enough experience
with it to say it does.
I forgot Objective C, which does, indeed, support first-class classes:
<http://developer.apple.com/documentation/Cocoa/Conceptual/ObjectiveC/
Articles/chapter_4_section_4.html//apple_ref/doc/uid/
chapter_4_section_4.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP30001163-CH7-TPXREF115>
Guyren G Howe
Relevant Logic LLC
guyren-at-relevantlogic.com ~ http://relevantlogic.com
REALbasic, PHP, Python programming
PostgreSQL, MySQL database design and consulting
Technical writing and training
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