Path: utzoo!dciem!nrcaer!scs!spl1!laidbak!att!pacbell!lll-tis!helios.ee.lbl.gov!pasteur!ucbvax!decwrl!sun!pitstop!sundc!seismo!uunet!mcvax!ukc!mup
From: mario@mucs.UX.CS.MAN.AC.UK (Mario Wolczko)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.smalltalk
Subject: Re: Is SELF a naughty OOP construct?
Message-ID: <4034@mucs.UX.CS.MAN.AC.UK>
Date: 2 Jun 88 12:08:25 GMT
Article-I.D.: mucs.4034
References: <1620001@hplb29a.HPL.HP.COM>
Reply-To: mario@mucs.UUCP (Mario Wolczko)
Organization: Computer Science, University of Manchester, UK
Lines: 25

In article <1620001@hplb29a.HPL.HP.COM> weeks@hplb29a.HPL.HP.COM (Gregory Weeks) writes:
>I have a suspicion that the SELF construct may turn out to be the GOTO of
>object-oriented programming.  That is, it will be viewed as promoting
>unsound code structure.  However, I have no arguments to back up this
>suspicion.
>
>Does anyone?

Take a look at this paper:

	Henry Lieberman,
	Using Prototypical Objects to Implement
	Shared Behavior in Object Oriented Systems,
	Proc. OOPSLA 86, SIGPLAN Notices, 21:11, 214-223.

Lieberman argues that the use of SELF in "classical" OO systems is a
flaw, and argues that delegation is a better way to do things. 

Mario Wolczko

   ______      Dept. of Computer Science    Internet:   mario%ux.cs.man.ac.uk
 /~      ~\    The University               USENET: mcvax!ukc!man.cs.ux!mario
(    __    )   Manchester M13 9PL           JANET:      mario@uk.ac.man.cs.ux
 `-':  :`-'    U.K.                         Tel:    +44-61-275 2000 extn 6146
____;  ;_____________the mushroom project____________________________________