Oddballs and clonability

[nicolas.pelletier3 at free.fr]

Pupeno <pupeno at pupeno.com> writes:

> I'm reading the section in 'Oddballs' in the tutorial at 
> http://perso.wanadoo.fr/kodama/x361.html
> So... Oddballs are objects that are not clonable (or shouldn't be at least). 
> The tutorial says it as 'The objects that cannot be cloned are called 
> oddballs, after the name of the prototype which implements the impossibility 
> to clone.'.

Then I guess the explanation needs  to be improved, to make clear that
the Oddball prototype itself is  a Cloneable, but its clones or copies
are not expected  to retain that property. What would  you like to see
written instead ?

The Self object  system exhibits the same problem:  when you clone nil
or true in it, you get an entierly new and different object. That does
not mean, of course, that this is The Right Thing (tm) to do.

> But at the end of that same section, another fact is explained: The clone 
> messages is available and it makes a clone that "doesn't work as expected".
> So, are oddballs clonable or not ?

Some lines further in the same  section, there is a warning about this
fact, documenting it as a known issue...

-- 
Nicolas