[self-interest] Issues about delegation

[Jecel Assumpcao Jr]

On Wednesday 05 November 2003 16:27, J. Baltasar García Perez-Schofield 
wrote:
> > ["copy-on-write" slots]
>
>          I see. So, the "general" solution would be to copy all
> inherited attributes.

Actually, in that kind of system you don't copy anything until someone 
tries to change it. So the "instances" might end up all looking 
different from each other depending on their history.

>          I understand. Is 'traits' a way to distinguish between
> prototype objects ("classes") and "instance" objects ?

It is a separate namespace - you can have both 'traits person' and 
'prototype person' in the system, but since 'prototype*' is a parent 
object in the 'lobby' object you can just say 'person' in the second 
case.

The "traits" are more like the classes while the prototypes are more 
like instances. The objects you clone from them look exactly like them 
(since we don't have the "copy-on-write" slots mentioned above). In 
fact, a prototype should be a fully functional "instance" which is why 
I decided to give it a name like 'John Doe' instead of ''. Prototypes 
are special in some languages, but not in Self.

-- Jecel