On 2003-11-20T18:04:20-0800, Steve Dekorte wrote: > Yes, my example isn't what I was going for. Let's use a simpler example. > Let's say we have a system like Smalltalk where the base Object > supports a method like: > > - forward:methodName args:arguments > > And the way this works is that when an object is sent a message it > doesn't respond to, it invokes this method with the appropriate > arguments. > > Now, you'll see we have a situation where *all* objects can except > *all* messages. And it can only be known at runtime if they want to > deal with them or not. > > How does static typing deal with this? It seems all the types in the > system would have to be declared to respond to all methods, in which > case, they tell us nothing and there is no such thing as a compile time > type error. Indeed, in a system like Smalltalk, there is no such thing as a compile time type error. Ken -- Edit this signature at http://www.digitas.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/ken/sig http://www.thismodernworld.com/ "vi has two modes: one where it beeps and one where it doesn't"
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