Historical Background
The earliest computers were programmed in their native assembly language, which were inherently reflective as these original architectures could be programmed by defining instructions as data and using self-modifying code. As programming moved to higher level languages such as C, this reflective ability disappeared (outside of malware) until programming languages with reflection built in to their type systems appeared.
Brian Cantwell Smith's 1982 doctoral dissertation introduced the notion of computational reflection in programming languages, and the notion of the meta-circular interpreter as a component of 3-Lisp.
Read more about this topic: Reflection (computer Programming)
Famous quotes containing the words historical and/or background:
“Reason, progress, unselfishness, a wide historical perspective, expansiveness, generosity, enlightened self-interest. I had heard it all my life, and it filled me with despair.”
—Katherine Tait (b. 1923)
“They were more than hostile. In the first place, I was a south Georgian and I was looked upon as a fiscal conservative, and the Atlanta newspapers quite erroneously, because they didn’t know anything about me or my background here in Plains, decided that I was also a racial conservative.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)