Newsgroups: comp.lang.smalltalk
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From: joe@teknomad.com (Joe TekNomad)
Subject: Re: smalltalk beginner
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Date: Wed, 3 Apr 1996 02:35:01 GMT
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In article <315DC716.599F@concentric.net>, alovejoy@concentric.net says...
>
>Alex Koutsoumbos wrote:
>> 
>> As a beginner smalltalk beginner, I'm having some difficulty with some of 
the
>> oo terminology used regarding the language.
>>

>>Alan Lovejoy answered:

>An "object" in Smalltalk is an object because the virtual machine makes
>it so.  What class it is an instance of has nothing to do with it.  A class
>does not have to inherit from Object (directly or indirectly).  After all,
>the class Object itself has no superclass, and any number of classes can
>be created and used with no superclass.
>



I agree with much of Alan's answer. I hate to complicate things even more... 
but this did start as a discussion of oo terminology so:

Object does actually have a superclass (at least in the flavours of Smalltalk I 
have used)....it answers superclass will nil. Perhaps Alan means that nil 
itself is not a class but an instance (of UndefinedObject). To cap it all 
Object is the superclass of UndefinedObject.

Following this 'strange loop' is quite enlightening.

Joe TekNomad

