In the search for the meaning of "self"

Question

In smalltalk exists the "workspace" environment. BY definition,"self" points to the object inside which the current method is executing. But how am I to understand "current method" when I type code snippets inside the workspace window? There is no current object running any method or I missed something.Anyone can help?

Answer 1

You can debug the code you execute and you will see that you end up executing a temporary method on an object. For instance in Pharo the workspace DoIts create a method on UndefinedObject (nil). So here self will refer to nil.

Answer 2

Try this experiment: type 'self' into a workspace, select it, and select "print it" from the context menu. This will show you what object self is bound to.

In most Smalltalks, self will be nil.