Re: argument about encapsulating data sublanguage

On Dec 28, 12:54 pm, Thomas Gagne <tga..._at_wide-open-west.com> wrote:
> I admit to not getting the humor or the irony (I'll duck behind
> something now or "self thickSkin: #on").

Thick skin is pretty much a prerequisite for c.d.t., as I'm sure you've noticed by now.

> Many OO systems already have what Marshall describes above. To go a
> step further, Smalltalk doesn't even implement math natively. "x + y"
> sends a message to x telling it to run the '+' method with the argument
> 'y'. That's how Smalltalk can be taught o add apples and oranges
> <http://gagne.homedns.org/~tgagne/articles/algebra/>.

Mmmm, not really what I was driving at. Smalltalk's example shows that traditional mathematical notation is simply a matter of syntax on binary functions, an important if obvious enough point. Unary methods in turn are largely just syntax on binary functions. (Actually Smalltalk is fairly interesting, although I find it hard to forgive the language for the introduction of the execrable term "message send" for function invocation.)

Marshall Received on Thu Dec 28 2006 - 22:57:59 CET