Subject: Re: Learning programming languages From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.no> Date: 1999/07/25 Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp Message-ID: <3141909545625225@naggum.no> * vilh...@home.se (Vilhelm Sjöberg) | For me this does not hurt (ergo I have yet to be enlightened). I think | it is more a matter of terminology then a real difference between the | languages. sorry, the difference is very real. whether a language types variables at compile-time or types object at run-time is actually a difference that goes far beyond terminology. now, object-oriented programming _means_ that one dispatches on type information at run-time. in other words, a language that types variables needs both techniques, which are at odds with each other at a fundamental level, but a language that types objects already has all it needs to be object-oriented from the start. there will always be hybrid languages, however. it isn't very useful to use hybrids as arguments unless you understand what they are hybrids of. #:Erik -- suppose we blasted all politicians into space. would the SETI project find even one of them?