Python aka. Smalltalk Lite?

[Fredrik Lundh]

Markus Kohler <kohler at medien.tecmath.com> wrote:
> > seriously, what are the major shortcomings in Python
> > from a Smalltalk professional's perspective?
> -- Smalltalk's calling mechanism is much simpler than Pythons making it
> easier to compile.

can you elaborate?

as I see it, python's calling mechanism involves passing
a tuple (and an optional keyword dictionary) to a callable
object.  how does smalltalk differ from this?

> Almost every Smalltalk implementation I have seens runs
> faster than Python.

just one simple question: reading some smalltalk code makes
me think that smalltalk requires you to declare what instance
variables you're going to use?  is this true?

can you add extra stuff to an instance afterwards without
any extra cost?

(should of course figure that out myself, but I don't seem
to be squeak-compatible ;-)

</F>