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I'm a little confused by the receiver thing. Is the idea that each object has a dictionary mapping function names to code and sending a message to an object mea

I'm a little confused by the receiver thing. Is the idea that each object has a dictionary mapping function names to code and sending a message to an object means execute whatever was found in that dictionary? So the example of { a < 3 } while involves evaluating a block, getting a boolean, then calling the while method on that boolean? That would seem to have a bad time with things like compare. Neither argument is special, you end up implementing a lot of compare-with methods. I.e. the expression problem. Is that understanding broadly correct?

smackeyacky 3y ago
Pretty much although it doesn't end up being quite as bad as it sounds. For example, your code wants to compare a string with some other object, if the other object understands 'string' then the built in method for comparing two strings can work. Otherwise you get a #doesNotUnderstand exception. Making arbitrary comparisons is a bit silly though, so in practice it doesn't happen very often.
zozbot234 3y ago
> Is the idea that each object has a dictionary mapping function names to code and sending a message to an object means execute whatever was found in that dictionary? Isn't that how Python, Ruby, JS etc. work under the hood anyway? And yes it's quite predictably a drag on performance.