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Files exist in a different universe of abstractions from language features. Heck a language should work in a universe where files don't exist at all.

A file is a stream of bytes that a process can get by giving the os a string (name) that has all sorts of encoding/decoding rules that rely on runtime state.

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enugu 3 days ago | parent [-]

Sure, files are a detail. But, the concept of namespace doesn't need to be attached to a file, it can just be a convenient convention to attach a namespace to a file. In live environments like Smalltalk images, there are no files.

I think what /u/dominicrose is trying to get at was that OOP bundles together things which need not be and in doing so, one loses flexibility. OOP is Encapsulation(can also be done via namespaces/modules), Polymorphism(can be done by functions with a dispatch based on first argument) and Reuse/Extensibility(inheritance is a special case, there are many other ways to build a new class/data-type from older ones, composition being one).

Often, this is not recognized in discourse and we end up with a 'OOP vs FP' discussion [1] even though the issue is not im/mutability. In fact, the discussion in article of [1] is actually about what is being discussed in this article. Should one do polymorphism via named implementations like in ML or anonymous ones like in Haskell/Rust? Inheritance in standard OOP languages counts as named implementations as the subclass has a name. Named implementations require more annotation but also have certain advantages like more clarity in which implementation to use and don't expose type parameters to user of the library (which happens with typeclasses).

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41901577

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igouy 2 days ago | parent [-]

> In live environments like Smalltalk images, there are no files.

Of course there are: image file, sources file, changes file.

And, of course, fileOuts to share code with others and to archive code -- so we can have a reproducible build process.

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enugu 2 days ago | parent [-]

OK, but files are external to the system. Within the Smalltalk environment, everything is an object and files are required as the ambient OS works with files. You can say that some objects within the environment, containing program source are playing the same role as source files in usual programming. Even there, one can have a richer interface than text/binary files.

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igouy a day ago | parent [-]

Long ago, Smalltalk's lack of explicit support for important aspects of programming was recognised:

"Programs consist of modules. Modules provide the units to divide the functional and organizational responsibility within a program."

"An Overview of Modular Smalltalk"

https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/62083.62095

	▲	enugu a day ago \| parent [-]
		Yes, I do agree with you - live image programming has to be composable/comprehensible/reproducible, and crucial state shouldn't be in anonymous objects. (I've even thinking of replacing mutable objects with with pure functions modifying a a tree of data). Types is another direction and the work on Strongtalk has proved influential for popular VMs. But, we dont need to go back from objects to files, except for the purpose of interacting with the OS. Richer structures actually help comprehensibility. For instance, revision control operating at a structural level. UNIX would have much nicer, if something like nushell had been adopted from the beginning, and the 'little pieces' used to build the system worked on structured data.