Stéphane Ducasse

What is the class Object ? What is the class Class ? Why the class Object is an instance of the class Class ? If you ever ask yourself such questions, this book is for you. After explaining the impact of representing classes as objects, you will develop step by step a minimal reflective kernel. In this book you will learn : - object instantiation, allocation, and initialization, - classes as objects, - description of classes, - creation of classes, - method lookup and error handling, - examples of metaclasses, - bootstrap of a reflective system.
The content of this book has been used to teach reflective architectures for more than 15 years.