🚀 go-pugleaf

>>> On 9 Nov 1995 11:51:08 GMT, mklein@alumni.caltech.edu (Michael
>>> S. Klein) said:

pcg> In more conventional languages, one usually speaks of 'calling a
pcg> procedure' instead of 'sending a message', and of procedure interface
pcg> instead of selector and procedure body instead of method.

Michael> In more conventional languages, (like C) the equivalent of
Michael> sending a message does not exist.

Evidently there must a be strenuous attempt by several posters in
comp.object to get their entry into the "grossest inanity of the year"
contest before the year closes.

But this is a bit flat, and I am sure that one could have done more:
for example I still like better the stupid notion expressed by someone
that it is only Smalltalk that does a LOOKUP on the name of a procedure
to find its implementation before calling it.

The curious idea here expressed that "conventional" languages don't do
"message sending", which apparently we all agree amounts to "(nested)
control transfer after a runtime lookup":

Michael> The important point is whether resolution is done at compile
Michael> time, or run time.  Smalltalk always defers resolution to run
Michael> time.

is unfortunately not new, and has already been expressed in this curious
thread. Uhm, what have I replied on every occasion?

        (+ 2 3)
        (+ 3.0 4.0)

let's add for good measure:

        ; just syntactic sugaring
        (defspecial send (receiver selector . args) ; roughly...
          (apply (eval selector) (append (list receiver) args)))

        (send 3 '+ 4)
        (send 3.0 '+ 4.0)

Hey! Lisp has had message sending for _over thirty years_! :-)

Unless you want, as many are fond of in this newsgroup, to claim that
you meant to designate as "conventional" any language that does not do
dynamic overload resolution...

Bah, enough of this waste of time.