Others have already mentioned The Early History of Smalltalk, highly recommended. You'll probably want to read it a couple of times, revisit from time to time.
"The key in making great and growable systems is much more to design how its
modules communicate rather than what their internal properties and
behaviors should be."
"I think I recall also pointing out that it is vitally important not just to
have a complete metasystem, but to have fences that help guard the crossing
of metaboundaries."
" I would say that a system that allowed other metathings to be done
in the ordinary course of programming (like changing what inheritance
means, or what is an instance) is a bad design. (I believe that systems
should allow these things, but the design should be such that there are
clear fences that have to be crossed when serious extensions are made.)"
"I would suggest that more progress could be made if the smart and talented
Squeak list would think more about what the next step in metaprogramming
should be -- how can we get great power, parsimony, AND security of meaning?"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKg1hTOQXoY
Others have already mentioned The Early History of Smalltalk, highly recommended. You'll probably want to read it a couple of times, revisit from time to time.
The big idea is messaging, or rather "ma"
http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/pipermail/squeak-dev/1998-...
"The key in making great and growable systems is much more to design how its modules communicate rather than what their internal properties and behaviors should be."
"I think I recall also pointing out that it is vitally important not just to have a complete metasystem, but to have fences that help guard the crossing of metaboundaries."
" I would say that a system that allowed other metathings to be done in the ordinary course of programming (like changing what inheritance means, or what is an instance) is a bad design. (I believe that systems should allow these things, but the design should be such that there are clear fences that have to be crossed when serious extensions are made.)"
"I would suggest that more progress could be made if the smart and talented Squeak list would think more about what the next step in metaprogramming should be -- how can we get great power, parsimony, AND security of meaning?"