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In Smalltalk, 'new' is a class method which allocates a new instance, but which then has no special access to the internals of that newly created instance. An i

In Smalltalk, 'new' is a class method which allocates a new instance, but which then has no special access to the internals of that newly created instance. An instance method, 'initialize' is then almost always used to set the initial state (by convention - this is not an actual language feature). Most commonly, initialize is called by new, but this again is just a convention, and a fairly recent one.

stormbrew 13y ago
Interesting. Yes, it is very similar in both ruby and python, except that the convention is stronger by virtue of being the default behaviour of #new or .__new__ respectively. The placement of the methods (new on the class object and init[ialize] on the instance) is identical. I really should do something in smalltalk. I only know details about it from reading about it, really, I've never had an opportunity to use it directly, though I go out of my way to understand its influences on more contemporary languages.
- reuven 13y ago
  My very limited experience working with the Smalltalk language and environment was quite negative, although I hear people sing its praises, so perhaps I just didn't know what I was doing. That said, it seems to me that many Ruby developers (and to a more limited degree, Python developers) are learning Smalltalk nowadays, for the same reason as English speakers learn Latin: to understand the origins of the language, and thus get a deeper understanding of how it works.
  - radiowave 13y ago
    Yes, and while I'm generally of the view that Smalltalk has lessons to teach, of course they aren't all good ones - in particular I sometimes feel that the way construction and initialization is done in Smalltalk has tended to incentivise having getters and setters for every internal variable, and has perhaps contributed to the rather brittle style of program construction that is decried as part of "everything that's wrong with OOP".

stormbrew 13y ago

Interesting. Yes, it is very similar in both ruby and python, except that the convention is stronger by virtue of being the default behaviour of #new or .__new__ respectively. The placement of the methods (new on the class object and init[ialize] on the instance) is identical. I really should do something in smalltalk. I only know details about it from reading about it, really, I've never had an opportunity to use it directly, though I go out of my way to understand its influences on more contemporary languages.

reuven 13y ago
My very limited experience working with the Smalltalk language and environment was quite negative, although I hear people sing its praises, so perhaps I just didn't know what I was doing. That said, it seems to me that many Ruby developers (and to a more limited degree, Python developers) are learning Smalltalk nowadays, for the same reason as English speakers learn Latin: to understand the origins of the language, and thus get a deeper understanding of how it works.
- radiowave 13y ago
  Yes, and while I'm generally of the view that Smalltalk has lessons to teach, of course they aren't all good ones - in particular I sometimes feel that the way construction and initialization is done in Smalltalk has tended to incentivise having getters and setters for every internal variable, and has perhaps contributed to the rather brittle style of program construction that is decried as part of "everything that's wrong with OOP".