From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=0.2 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID, REPLYTO_WITHOUT_TO_CC autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: fac41,b87849933931bc93 X-Google-Attributes: gidfac41,public X-Google-Thread: 109fba,b87849933931bc93 X-Google-Attributes: gid109fba,public X-Google-Thread: 103376,b87849933931bc93 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Thread: 114809,b87849933931bc93 X-Google-Attributes: gid114809,public X-Google-Thread: 1108a1,b87849933931bc93 X-Google-Attributes: gid1108a1,public From: Eric Clayberg Subject: Re: OO, C++, and something much better! Date: 1997/01/28 Message-ID: <32EE2FEE.62FE@parcplace.com>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 212819461 references: <32DF458F.4D5C@concentric.net> <32DF94DC.6FF8@watson.ibm.com> <32DFD972.37E4@concentric.net> <5bphq4$5js@mulga.cs.mu.OZ.AU> <32E05FAF.47BA@concentric.net> <5buodl$bci@boursy.news.erols.com> <32E2FEC7.2F7B@concentric.net> <5bvncj$gqg$1@A-abe.resnet.ucsb.edu> <32E47B4B.56D9@concentric.net> <32E4E6E1.437E@dstsystems.com> <32E8C18F.354B@sdrc.com> <32ECF63D.5EB@netright.com> content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii organization: ParcPlace-Digitalk, Inc. mime-version: 1.0 reply-to: clayberg@parcplace.com newsgroups: comp.lang.c++,comp.lang.smalltalk,comp.lang.eiffel,comp.lang.ada,comp.object x-mailer: Mozilla 3.0 (Win95; U) Date: 1997-01-28T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: David Hanley wrote: > So smalltalk will happily pass a message to the nill object, and the > progrm will chug along just fine? Most the most part, yes. The nil object is just like any other object in the system. It is also the default placeholder for any uninitialized variables. There are lots of examples where sending messages to nil or passing nil as an argument is just fine. It is only when you send a message to nil that it does not expect that you have a problem. Even then, it depends upon what kind of exception handlers the developer has set up whether the program will chug along just fine or simply report the error, write an error log and halt the program (in any case, a core dump is rarely the outcome). -Eric