Object-Orientation FAQ

[See also section 1.6]
A Meta-Class is a class' class.  If a class is an object, then that object
must have a class (in classical OO anyway).  Compilers provide an easy way to
picture Meta-Classes.  Classes must be implemented in some way; perhaps with
dictionaries for methods, instances, and parents and methods to perform all
the work of being a class.  This can be declared in a class named "Meta-Class".
The Meta-Class can also provide services to application programs, such as
returning a set of all methods, instances or parents for review (or even
modification).  [Booch 91, p 119] provides another example in Smalltalk with
timers.  In Smalltalk, the situation is more complex.  To make this easy, refer
to the following listing, which is based on the number of levels of distinct
instantiations:

1 Level System
  All objects can be viewed as classes and all classes can be viewed as
  objects (as in Self).  There is no need for Meta-Classes because objects
  describe themselves.  Also called "single-hierarchy" systems.
  There is only 1 kind of object.
2 Level System
  All Objects are instances of a Class but Classes are not accessible to
  programs (no Meta-Class except for in the compiler and perhaps for type-safe
  linkage, as in C++).
  There are 2 kinds of distinct objects: objects and classes.
3 Level System
  All objects are instances of a class and all classes are instances of
  Meta-Class.  The Meta-Class is a class and is therefore an instance of
  itself (really making this a 3 1/2 Level System).  This allows classes to
  be first class objects and therefore classes are available to programs.
  There are 2 kinds of distinct objects (objects and classes), with a
  distinguished class, the metaclass.
5 Level System
  What Smalltalk provides.  Like a 3 Level System, but there is an extra level
  of specialized Meta-Classes for classes.  There is still a Meta-Class as in
  a 3 Level System, but as a class it also has a specialized Meta-Class, the
  "Meta-Class class" and this results in a 5 Level System:
    object
    class
    class class (Smalltalk's Meta-Classes)
    Meta-Class
    Meta-Class class

  The "class class"es handle messages to classes, such as constructors and
  "new", and also "class variables" (a term from Smalltalk), which are
  variables shared between all instances of a class (static member data in
  C++).  There are 3 distinct kinds of objects (objects, classes, and
  metaclasses).