[OPINION] - does language really matter if they all do the samething?

[Greg Ewing (using news.cis.dfn.de)]

Dietrich Epp wrote:
> 
> Python seems to take the middle ground.  ... 
 > It's not what I'd choose as an example of an object oriented
> language.  There are no messages, only function calls, so you can't 
> capture them.

What do you mean by a "message"? If you're talking about a
Smalltalk method selector, the Python equivalent of that
is simply the name of the method, as a string. You can do
all the same things with that in Python as you can do with
a method selector in Smalltalk (testing whether the method
exists, etc.)

> the paradigm of sending a message "to" an object 
> doesn't exist, 
But "sending a message" is just the terminology Smalltalkers
happen to use to refer to the act of calling a method. What
actually happens is extremely similar to what happens in
Python. Sending a message in Smalltalk involves two
conceptual steps:

(1) Look up the message selector in the class to find a
piece of code.

(2) Call the code, passing it the arguments of the message.

In Python, the analogous steps are:

(1) Look up the name of the method in the class, yielding
a callable object.

(2) Call the callable object, passing it the arguments of
the method call.

The main difference is that in Python the intermediate
result between (1) and (2) is a tangible object that you
can manipulate, whereas in Smalltalk looking up the method
and calling it are done together indivisibly.

 > and anyone coming from Smalltalk or even Objective-C
 > might miss that and feel constrained (I did).

How did you feel constrained? If you tell us what Smalltalk-like
thing you wanted to do but couldn't, maybe we can help you find
a Pythonic equivalent. Underneath the surface syntax, Python
and Smalltalk are very similar in many ways.

-- 
Greg Ewing, Computer Science Dept,
University of Canterbury,	
Christchurch, New Zealand
http://www.cosc.canterbury.ac.nz/~greg