Re: Message Passing with GOOPS

[Marko Rauhamaa]

Ralf Mattes <address@hidden>:

> Guile's GOOPS is a (rather impressive) clone of CLOS, the Common Lisp
> Object System. I such a system functions/methods don't "belong" to a
> class.
>
> [...]
>
> Message passing only exists in object systems where methods belong to 
> a class/object. Generic functions don't "belong" to a class/object.
> If you really want to use a far inferior OO system you might want to port
> Common Lisp's Flavour system :-)

No doubt GOOPS/CLOS is impressive. Unfortunately, it ultimately left me
cold.

Really, classification is at the root of GOOPS's problems. What I want
is a constructor that gives me objects that can do some interesting
things. The "class" of that object is not that interesting.

GOOPS also, surprisingly, seems to be decades behind in trying to
present objects as collections of slots.

I once heard this story. The French king had a royal ball in honor of
the birthday of the French queen. When some lordly guests presented
their gift, a pair of fancy stockings, the king drew a fit, declaring:
"The Queen of France does not have legs!"

Similarly, in my mind, objects don't have slots, they interact.


Marko