I've used Smalltalk, I've used Java. They are not not different in terms of the object mechanism. The only difference one could imagine is that you can treat me

I've used Smalltalk, I've used Java. They are not not different in terms of the object mechanism. The only difference one could imagine is that you can treat messages as data through doesNotUnderstand in Smalltalk (the analog to method_missing in Ruby). That is by far not the predominant use case though. Otherwise, what makes method calls "messages" in Smalltalk, but not in Java? This mailing list entry has always sound like bogus philosophistry trying to defend an imaginary high ground.