Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!inuxc!iuvax!pur-ee!uiucdcs!uiucdcsp!johnson From: johnson@uiucdcsp.UUCP Newsgroups: comp.lang.smalltalk Subject: Re: declarations vs smalltalk Message-ID: <80500008@uiucdcsp> Date: Mon, 6-Jul-87 14:33:00 EDT Article-I.D.: uiucdcsp.80500008 Posted: Mon Jul 6 14:33:00 1987 Date-Received: Thu, 9-Jul-87 06:35:52 EDT References: <245100009@orstcs> Lines: 13 Nf-ID: #R:orstcs:245100009:uiucdcsp:80500008:000:688 Nf-From: uiucdcsp.cs.uiuc.edu!johnson Jul 6 13:33:00 1987 Suzuki's type inference system works only with a subset of Smalltalk. In particular, it does not work with parameterized classes such as Collections. Cardelli and Wegner's paper is must reading for anybody doing research in type systems or in object-oriented programming. Unfortunately, it is not as applicable to Smalltalk as one might think, since ad-hoc polymorphism is important in Smalltalk, in my opinion more important than inclusion polymorphism. (Actually, I might have gotten that last kind of polymorphism wrong---it's the kind that Cardelli and Wegner spend most of their time on.) However, I learned a lot from reading their paper and it has greatly influenced my work.