[chuck-users] sporking member function and static

[Atte André Jensen]

Hi

I played a bit with my problem of sporking a member function and found 
that the attached example (static_member.ck) actually *do* work.

However (as the comment in the code suggest) if the function sporkee() 
is *not* declared as a static function, I get:
[chuck](VM): NullPointerException: shred[id=2:spork~exp], PC=[3]

Could soneone provide a meaningfull explanation, why that is? And is the 
exception (when "static" is removed) to be considered a bug in chuck?

Finally, what *exactly* does "static" mean? The documentation states 
that static data and functions "are shared by all instances of that 
class". Ok, I understand that. But apparently "static" doesn't mean 
"cannot be changed" (which is what the word implies), mostly applicable 
to data, as the other example (static.ck) shows. So, why was the word 
"static" chosen, shouldn't it have been "global" or "shared" or 
something like that? Or is there a historical/traditional reason behind 
the word "static" that I'm not aware of? Whatever the reason, I think 
this (that "static" doesn't mean "unchangeable" and when + why it's 
neccessary to declare things, esp. functions "static", like in the case 
of "spork_member.ck") needs mention in the manual, since I might not be 
the only one thrown off by this...

Thanks in advance for any response.

-- 
peace, love & harmony
Atte

http://www.atte.dk      | quartet:      http://www.anagrammer.dk
http://www.atte.dk/gps  | compositions: http://www.atte.dk/compositions
-------------- next part --------------
An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed...
Name: spork_member.ck
Url: http://lists.cs.princeton.edu/pipermail/chuck-users/attachments/20060620/6553eb3f/attachment.bat 
-------------- next part --------------
An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed...
Name: static.ck
Url: http://lists.cs.princeton.edu/pipermail/chuck-users/attachments/20060620/6553eb3f/attachment-0001.bat