[Openmcl-devel] "Smalltalk Model" related questions

[Sebastian Nozzi]

Hello all,

I was thinking on certain features of the typical Smalltalk environment and
I, in my inexperience, believe that they are missing in Lisp. The answer to
my questions is certainly something like "that doesn't apply to Lisp, a
lisper would do this and that", so I seek some enlightment.

While the questions are certainly general to all Lisp versions, I think each
implementation has its own answers, as I think there is no standard way to
solve them (I mean, not in CLHS). So if there is an answer, I think it's
because it has an openMcl specific implementation.

On the other hand, if these questions are off-topic I apologize in advance.

1) Images

There is something like "lisp images" supported by openMcl, I think. Is the
concept the same as in Smalltalk? What gets saved? What doesn't? What is and
what is not a Lisp image?

2) Source Code retriveral

Is it possible to get the source code for a function/macro/method/whatever
back in order to do further work on it? I have the impression that once I do
a "defun" I can not get the defining code back unless I have it in a file
somewhere. In Smalltalk you can always access the code for all methods
(unless they are primitives).

3) Function/Method look-up based on argument-form

Is it possible to tell the system to give me a list of all the functions
and/or methods that conform to a specific argument-form? Say, "give me all
functions which at least take as first parameter a member of class foo"

With this I could somehow look for all applicable functions to a class-type
(which in Smalltalk you know by looking at the methods belonging to the
class; in Lisp there is no specific way to gather equivalent information, I
think)


I don't mean this as a critique to the language or implementation, just to
gain some insight as how this things are handled in the Lisp world,
concretelly in openMcl.

Many thanks in advance,

Sebastian

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