[self-interest] Questions about Self

[David Ungar]

Yes, but I have a long-standing debate with Mark Miller, whom I respect beyond words. And a long-standing unease about trying to understand one paradigm in terms of another according to the sort of argument in this link.

Here’s my canonical example: Back in the day, Schemers would tell me that Smalltalk blocks were just Scheme lambdas. Yet, in Smalltalk, every control structure uses blocks (and dynamic dispatch), while in Scheme cond is a primitive, even though it could have been done differently. From a cognitive psych point of view, (see Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things by Lakoff IIRC), blocks are more basic than lambdas. The syntax is much shorter, and they are the fundamental building blocks of control in ST. Even though the interpreter might look similar for the two, there are deep differences in the process of programming, the patterns people reach for, debuggability (including support by the tools), etc.

So I always worry, when I read that sort of argument.

Whew! Didn’t intent to rant.

Thanks,

- David



> On Jun 25, 2016, at 10:36 AM, 'Welch, Ronald P (US)' Ronald.P.Welch at BAESYSTEMS.com [self-interest] <self-interest at yahoogroups.com> wrote:
> 
> A third way of looking at objects, which I rather like, is the lambda-based perspective:
> 
> 
> http://erights.org/elib/capability/ode/ode-objects.html <http://erights.org/elib/capability/ode/ode-objects.html>
> 
> The last paragraph quotes Dr. Alan Kay…
> 
> ----------=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-========oOo========-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=----------
> mailto:Ronald.P.Welch at baesystems.com <mailto:Ronald.P.Welch at baesystems.com>                Phone:(607)206-8718
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> 
> On Jun 25, 2016, at 5:39 AM, Stephen De Gabrielle spdegabrielle at gmail.com <mailto:spdegabrielle at gmail.com> [self-interest] wrote:
> 
>> *** WARNING ***
>> EXTERNAL EMAIL -- This message originates from outside our organization.
>> 
>> 
>>  
>> 
>> So we have prototypes (self & JavaScript) and classes (sometimes added to JavaScript).
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> Is there another way?
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> S.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> On Sat, 25 Jun 2016 at 04:23, 'Jason Grossman' spam-me at xeny.net <mailto:spam-me at xeny.net> [self-interest] <self-interest at yahoogroups.com <mailto:self-interest at yahoogroups.com>> wrote:
>> I wrote:
>> 
>> > I just re-watched Alan Kay's famous talk "The Computer Revolution 
>> > Hasn't Happened Yet", and it sounds to me like a very good argument 
>> > against classes, although I doubt that he meant it to be!
>> 
>> 
>> And I've just noticed that Alan Kay has recently (this week!) said:
>> 
>> > I liked Self. "Good OOP" is still waiting for a much better notion to 
>> > replace the idea of a "Class"
>> 
>> https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11939851 <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11939851>
>> 
>> Jason
>> 
>> -- 
>> Kind regards,
>> Stephen
>> --
>> Bigger than Scheme, cooler than Clojure & more fun than CL.(n=1)
>> --
>> 
> 
> 
> 

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