Object model

Phantom is a strictly object-oriented environment. It means that no global code or data exist. Any code is a method of some class and is executed in object-related environment.

No “process” thing exists in Phantom, no process globals and process state exist therefore.

There are threads, however, and technically it is possible to associate some data with current thread. No corresponding mechanism exists at this time, though.

Thread can be used to reach outside – it can provide executing objects with links to other system resources. No global way to get them exists, so that one can create a thread which will receive partial access to system resources or will get some special/individual replacements for them.

The only global stuff accessible to any code is classes of the most general things: integer, string, code object, interface object and object of class “class”. The last one is class for objects, representing class. It can be used to create a new class in runtime.

There are two kinds of classes in phantom: general and internal ones. Objects of general classes contain object references only. Internal class objects can hold some other kind of value, and their methods are implemented in kernel.