Path: utzoo!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!think.com!mintaka!bloom-beacon!eru!hagbard!sunic!news.funet.fi!tukki.jyu.fi!tsaari From: tsaari@tukki.jyu.fi (Antero Taivalsaari) Newsgroups: comp.object Subject: Re: Values and objects (was: The Emperor Strikes Back) Message-ID: <1991Mar8.081041.9137@tukki.jyu.fi> Date: 8 Mar 91 08:10:41 GMT References: <1991Mar4.072631.9497@tukki.jyu.fi> <2296@kielo.uta.fi> Organization: University of Jyvaskyla, Finland Lines: 38 tsaari> Objects can be used to represent real-world entities; they can also be tsaari> used to represent "objectified" values. grandi>It is fairly obvious that I think that the above distinction is entirely grandi>meaningless and artificial. What the author misses is that objects are grandi>numbers with special encoding rules, in particular they are numbers grandi>where part of their digits are encoded in their address. That is a very grandi>restrictive and limiting view of things. It is the problem that grandi>generates the EQ/EQUAL difference and all sorts of evil. grandi>I have already posted an article in which hopefully I make clear that grandi>'objects' are nothing than specially and restrictively encoded numbers. grandi>Finally, I had the SIGPLAN article about values/objects in mind when grandi>introducing this discussion; it is indeed the one that many years ago grandi>convinced me of exactly the opposite conclusions that the author grandi>reaches. Actually, your conclusions above are exactly the same as MacLennan makes in his paper. Objects themselves are not values -- they are encoded representations of values. You cannot define number 2 or color red in a computer without first associating it with some particular representation. In that sense, objects are simply a means for implementing representations for values. However, I agree with you in that this discussion is pointless. There are lots of more important aspects in object-orientation to ponder. Saying that objects are numbers with special encoding rules just does not bring any insight into what is so special about object-oriented programming compared to for example machine languages. -- Antero Taivalsaari Department of Computer Science University of Jyvaskyla/ University of Tampere Finland tsaari@jyu.fi, tsaari@cs.uta.fi