PackageDescription: Whatever


Whatever

Last published: December 7, 2007 by 'mlucas-smith'

Defines 3 Classes
Extends 4 Classes

Whatever provides an efficient shapeless Object, much like a self object. You can set any slots you want on each instance, give it custom behavior and even inherit that behavior with new sub-instances. Consider this 'classless' objects.

Whatever.Object new
name: 'My name';
age: 76;
gender: #happy;
lifeStory: (Whatever.Object new
title: 'My epic tale of classlessness';
content: 'It was a dark and stormy night...';
yourself);
methodAt: 'printString' put: '^self name, '', aged: '', self age printString';
yourself

This package implements these shapeless objects in one of the most efficient ways possible. It makes a copy of the class you're instantiating and when it receives a DoesNotUnderstand, if the selector looks like a getter or setter, the copy of the class will install getter and setter methods that directly access array slots so that the code runs as fast as a defined class would.

Each Whatever is technically an Array, but that is hidden to treat it like an object. Because you can define your own behavior on the instance, we can pretend there is no class at all.

In fact, there are two classes per instance - this may seem heavy weight, but the VM doesn't mind and it actually doesn't cost us that much. The class you instantiate from is first copied as a behaviorClass and then copied again for a shapeClass. When you add methods to your Whatever.Object, they are added to behaviorClass and when you add instance variables, they are added to the shapeClass.

When you subclass a Whatever.Object instance with #new or #clone, you do not inherit the shape methods from the superclass, such that you don't get shape change paradoxes between parent and child whatevers.

"Make a sub instance"
(Whatever.Object new
methodAt: 'test' put: '^true';
new) test

"Make a clone instance"
(Whatever.Object new
methodAt: 'test' put: '^true';
clone) test