[Python-ideas] Message passing syntax for objects

[Mark Janssen]

On Mon, Mar 18, 2013 at 2:51 PM, Andrew Barnert <abarnert at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Have you even looked at a message-passing language?
>
> A Smalltalk "message" is a selector and a sequence of arguments. That's what you send around. Newer dynamic-typed message-passing OO and actor languages are basically the same as Smalltalk.

Yes, but you have to understand that Alan Kays came with strange ideas
of some future computer-human symbiosis.  So his language design and
other similar attempts (like php) is rather skewed from that premise

And also, despite name-dropping, I'm not trying to create anything
like that idea of message-passing.  I'm talking about something very
simple, a basic and universal way for objects to communicate.

>> With function or method syntax, you're telling the computer to
>> "execute something", but that is not the right concepts for OOP.  You
>> want the objects to interact with each other and in a high-level
>> language, the syntax should assist with that.
>
> And you have to tell the object _how_ to interact with each other.

This is a different paradigm that what I'm talking about.  In the OOP
of my world, Objects already embody the intelligence of how they are
going to interact with the outside world, because I put them there.

> Even with reasonably intelligent animals, you don't just tell two animals to interact, except in the rare case where you don't care whether they become friends or dinner.

You're model of computer programming is very alien to me.  So I don't
think it will be productive to try to convince you of what I'm
suggesting, but feel free to continue...

Mark