Popular conceit about learning programming languages

[maney at pobox.com]

Jacek Generowicz <jacek.generowicz at cern.ch> wrote:
> When you call a subroutine, you are calling a specific piece of
> code. The caller decides what will be executed. When you pass a
> message, the decision as to which exact code should be executed is
> made elsewhere (some form of dispatch).
> 
> But it looks as if my understanding of message passing is different
> from Pascal's.

Maybe, but probably less so than you imagine.  You're desribing it from
the relatively concrete, implementation side; Pascal has preferred the
fuzzy, metaphorical language that was introduced, IMO, in an effort
either to make a useful but trivial formalism sound like it was
something wonderful, or to hilight the important new ways of thinking
about and structuring programs that the formalism (ie., language
support) made much more convenient.  This is Monday, so today I'll say
it was the former, handwaving; on Tuesdays I prefer the metaphor as
pedagogical device.  And so it goes through the week...