ImageBasedComputing

SmallTalk etc. have images ... a kind of static snapshot of code + data in a live system.

JonathanEdwards talks about them here : https://alarmingdevelopment.org/?p=1557

But just the first paragraph gives me an insight.

That images are, in a sense, grappling with a problem I think about. How to represent the concrete tokens of data, as well as the abstract types of data.

I've long thought that while we were OK at talking about types, talking about concrete tokens was often left as an afterthought.

But it's true, images, by mixing generic code with the current state of the system do capture the concrete tokens

I'm not sure the completely free-for-all mix in images is the right way to go. But I think images are obviously beloved because they seem to solve some of this.