I am trying to do a JavaScript experiment to make Objects behave like
Smalltalk objects.
example:
"reminder: Smalltalk arrays start at 1."
|arr|
a := Array new: 1.
a at: 1 put: 'Hello, World'.
Here, the Smalltalk array has a message "at: index put: value" which is
defined many layers of prototype chaining down, at Object in category
accessing.
However there are many messages on the way traversing the prototype chain
that start with "at:", such as(SequenceableCollection) "at: x ifAbsent: y",
"at: x incrementBy: y".
How does Smalltalk tell which message is which? Does it merge the messages
into a single message such as "at: x put: y" to "atPut(x, y)" at some point?
Without knowing this, I have to traverse the whole call chain and check
whether each argument is called in a specific way, which is incredibly
expensive. If there was a single name such as "atPut" I can easily just do a
dictionary lookup for this name and get it at O(1).
Does Smalltalk actually store each message?
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