[self-interest] A question about method slots [1 Attachment]

[Jecel Assumpcao Jr.]

Michael,

> But what about a method slot? If I edit a method in a clone, the 
> original is /not/ affected.

This is a GUI issue, not a language one. The idea is that the most
common use for editing a method in an object that also exists in other
objects in the same "clone family" is that you now want it to be
different. You want to start a new clone family.

Note that if you edit the exact same method in a debugger instead of an
outliner then your change *will* be applied to all the objects in the
clone family. The idea here is that you found a bug and so all copies of
the method should be changed. So these two tools act very differently
but the underlying language is the same.

"Read-only" means for normal use. Besides methods, we also have
immutable strings (what would be Symbols in Smalltalk-80). The
programming tools (and the mirror objects they are built on) are not
normal use. If we didn't have this "escape hatch" it would be impossible
to create these read-only objects in the first place.

-- Jecel