The hallmark of COLA is recursive design, which sort of makes it more like Smalltalk than Lisp (but this is a fruitless point, and the key is to encourage you to dig deeper into what COLA is rather than what "it's like...").
The hallmark of COLA is recursive design, which sort of makes it more like Smalltalk than Lisp
Late binding is certainly a big part of the smalltalk philosophy as well, and recursive design is a great way of implementing late binding. A system uses the same "user interface" internally, it certainly makes it easier to let people modify the internals.
The big difference I see between Smalltalk and Lisp (correct me if I'm wrong) is that Lisp systems tend to use compile-time abstractions Lisp->machine code->execution, while Smalltalkers from early on started thinking about interpretation and VM's - using abstractions which require run-time data to make decisions.
It depends who you ask what the big difference b/w Smalltalk and Lisp is.
Model-driven architecture weenies like me will tell you the biggest difference is methodological, and that real-time object-oriented systems engineering has its roots in most of Kay's ideas.
I'm not sure what you mean by the following:
@Lisp systems tend to use compile-time abstractions Lisp->machine code->execution
I don't think so. The whole reason I enjoy Lisp is for how it has inspired me to do streaming models of compilation. When you're updating things dynamically, the most important thing is to have a logical object model - starting with getting your "(UML) package diagram" correct. Otherwise you end up with a large system that requires the entire system to be locked up for minutes while you do the upgrade, because different parts of the system depend too much on physical model details. That's why you separate message from method. So you can do this in any language, some easier than others.
"Accessible Language-Based Environments of Recursive Theories (a white paper advocating widespread unreasonable behavior)". http://www.vpri.org/pdf/rn2006001a_colaswp.pdf.
The hallmark of COLA is recursive design, which sort of makes it more like Smalltalk than Lisp (but this is a fruitless point, and the key is to encourage you to dig deeper into what COLA is rather than what "it's like...").