Prothon Prototypes vs Python Classes

[John Roth]

"Michael" <mogmios at mlug.missouri.edu> wrote in message
news:406635AB.9050803 at mlug.missouri.edu...
> I'm not terribly familiar with the concept of prototypes although I
> believe I understand the basic meaning and I have worked in languages
> which do use prototypes (although not called that).
>
> Aren't there many times when it is usefult to work with classes where
> you do not want an instance to exist? Such as multiple level of
> subclasses where code is kept easily readable by putting it on a the
> appropiate class for that function alone. Often useful when you'll be
> using many similar but not identical objects? I can see how it'd be
> useful to be able to define new methods on an object, or edit the
> methods on an object but I can not see the purpose to removing classes
> altogether. Am I correct in my impression that with prototyping you must
> instantate an object to define it's structure? That would seem wasteful
> and cluttering of the namespace. Also he way your prototypes read appear
> less clear to me than a class definition. I fear that you'd wind up with
> people creating an object.. coding random stuff.. adding a method to
> that  object.. coding more random stuff.. and then adding more to the
> object.

It's certainly true that in a prototype based language all objects
exist: there are no objects that the compiler deals with but does
not put into the resulting program. And it's quite true that it does
open up the floodgates for a lot of messiness.

On the other hand, there are application areas where that is
exactly what you need: I've already mentioned interactive fiction,
and there are undoubtedly others.

I'd like to play around with a prototype based language to see how it
works, although for reasons I've mentioned elsewhere, I won't use
Prothon. I'd be using IO if they had a windows executable installer,
rather than requiring me to compile the silly thing.

John Roth