Meta

41:42 Meta means that you step back from your own place. What you used to do is now what you see. What you were is now what you act on. Verbs Turn to Nouns. What you used to think of as a pattern is now treated as a thing to put in the Slot of an other pattern. A meta-foo is a foo in whose slots you can put parts of a foo. ...

START 2502 YOUTUBE lw6TaiXzHAE Meta section in Growing a Language by Guy Steele

paul90 via matrix thinks that "step outside" might be better wording than "step back" – maybe stepping to a different point just outside exposes different collections slots. Rather than the little 'red car' of Kay's lecture, I'm thinking little black bird and stepping to a different spot might allow you to act on its group behaviour – maybe in a Murmuration.

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Alan Kay's Turing Award Lecture ends with a demo that shows the drive-a-car thing – a fascinating exploration of object oriented programming, a fulfillment of his expression that "Everything Is an Object."