We are raising a generation of object people who’ve know only Java. They know nothing of Smalltalk, little of reflection, the CLOS MOP, or multimethods. This is a tragedy. It is one that should have been avoided, and it is one that must be redressed.

Spelunking around the Smalltalk image is the finest apprenticeship in object-oriented design and programming a boy / a person / a body could possibly have / ask for. If they had World Heritage sites in cyberspace, the PARC images, the land of Ingalls, and Kay, and Goldbeg, and Kahler, and Liebs, and … <oversight> ought be one…

The CLOS MOP is one of the most remarkable object oriented designs I’ve ever seen. The Art of the MOP is a landmark that has nearly been lost.

The sheer potential of building languages out of objects is being forgotten, even as it reemerges that the next level before our eyes. It cannot be swept under the rug.

Eclipse is a pile of black box components built of reflective glue, but everywhere, designers of all kinds are rediscovering this power…