Self-interest April 2001

self-interest@lists.selflanguage.org

13 participants
16 discussions

Re: [self-interest] Re: An OO history
by Dru Nelson 14 Apr '01

14 Apr '01

Small note.. Cel is not monolithic. It is declarative like some of the newer smalltalks (Pocket Smalltalk). I think the big problem for Self would be the compiler technology. There is a lot there for a particular architecture. Dru Nelson San Mateo, California On Fri, 13 Apr 2001, Steve Dekorte wrote: > Interesting, what's the smallest Self could be squeezed into and still > be useful? > Would a 100K version be possible than ran as fast as other scripting > languages like Python? The Ruby scripting language has become very > popular as a web scripting language despite the fact that it uses a > Smalltalk like syntax. Maybe Self could become a popular scripting > language if it was less monolithic. >

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Re: [self-interest] Re: An OO history
by Jecel Assumpcao Jr 14 Apr '01

14 Apr '01

On Thursday 05 April 2001 23:59, Steve Dekorte wrote: > Memory usage maybe have been an issue for using Self. There are people on this list who are in a better position to comment on what happened. But memory shouldn't have been a problem - I used early versions of Self on 8MB machines. Of course, they were running SunViews instead of X :-) Ok, so 8MB was unthinkable back then for embedded devices, but ParcPlace's software was even fatter (it did have a GUI and a bunch of other stuff). And portability probably wouldn't have been seen as a problem since it ran on the 680X0 and Sparc and had comments that made it seem that MIPS and other cpus were not far behind. -- Jecel

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Re: An OO history
by John Hinsley 07 Apr '01

07 Apr '01

Many thanks, Jecel and Jay for all the links and comments. I knew of the existence of Objective C (although I've not looked at any code and know nothing of its history), but Apple Object Pascal I'd never heard of. In developmental terms, is it part of the Delphi branch or a seperate offshoot from Pascal? I must try and fit Eiffel into my mental picture, too. I recall that the SmallEiffel people refer to Pascal a great deal, but I'm not sure if this indicates a significant developmental link or simply hinges around a similar syntax. (It could even be -- in a nice way, there's nothing wrong with being proud of being French -- a nationalistic thing!) Jay mentions Mark Guzdial's _Squeak_ book. I was aware that it was in the works, but didn't know it was out yet. Must go and buy a copy. I'll try and do something with all this material, although the course I'm currently doing (the Open University's M206 "Computing: An Object-oriented Approach") has no historical/developmental component, focussing on learning Smalltalk (through a specialised version of Learning Works) and program design and development. In the meantime, here are two of my favourite quotes, which I'm sure you two have come across, but which others may not have: http://x37.deja.com/getdoc.xp?AN=564595555&CONTEXT=949863157.89849870&hitnu… Author: Eric Clayberg <clayberg(a)instantiations.com> Patrick Logan <patrick(a)c837917-a.potlnd1.or.home.com> wrote in message news:hTN84.453$HT1.6388@news.rdc1.wa.home.com... > > I wish the original Oak team had chosen to adopt Smalltalk > rather than invent Java They tried to, but ParcPlace wanted too much on a per-copy royalty basis...sigh And: "The main problem for the C++ community today is to use Standard C++ in the way it was intended rather than as a glorified C or a poor man's Smalltalk." - Bjarne Stroustrup (inventor of C++), "Getting From The Past To The Future" , p. 23 C++ Report, SIGS Nov/Dec 1999 Vol1 No.10 Thanks again John -- ****************************************************************************** Marx: "Why do Anarchists only drink herbal tea?" Proudhon: "Because all proper tea is theft." ******************************************************************************

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An OO history
by John Hinsley 05 Apr '01

05 Apr '01

I'm having trouble peicing together the parts of 00 as a history. (I only just put together the connection between Xerox PARC and ParcPlace, and then, only because I fell over it in a Squeak tutorial!) I keep bumping into wonderful little snippets, glorious quotes from Eric Clayberg and Bjarne Stroustrup, Jecel's recollections........ Seems to me that there's a tale here at least as worthy of telling as Cringely's "Accidental Empires" or the story of Open Source, but if I came up with the idea, surely someone's already done it? And, anyway, I'm not a writer on that kind of level. Can anyone recommend any books, papers, their favourite stories? -- ****************************************************************************** Marx: "Why do Anarchists only drink herbal tea?" Proudhon: "Because all proper tea is theft." ******************************************************************************

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Re: simple object model
by Jecel Assumpcao Jr 03 Apr '01

03 Apr '01

On Monday 02 April 2001 17:05, Steve Dekorte wrote: > > Jecel Assumpcao Jr wrote: > > 1) base level: objects look like menus, morphs, strings, etc... > > > > 2) reflective level: objects look like hash tables (or > > collections of slots) > > > > 3) implementation level: you have the actual memory format of > > objects with tricks such as "maps" to help make cloned objects > > smaller > > > > What I am investigating here is the possibility of bringing levels > > 2 and 3 closer together (ideally level 2 would be a slightly "sugar > > coated" version of level 3). > > I'm not sure what you mean here. > If you mean: > 1) method invocation Yes. > 2) reflection Ok. > 3) object model Well, I mean the object model as seen by the implementor. > Then scripting languages like python and lua unite the first 2: > > 1) table.slotName() = call the returned function > > 2) a = table.slotName (get slot value, be it a function or data) > table.slotName = b (set slot value to data or function) That is exactly it. But I don't like how this unification made 1 feel less object-like than it does in Smalltalk or Self. But it is reasonable for people used to C++. > And Lua brings 3 (the implementation of the object model) up to the > level of 1&2 (the language itself) by providing "hooks" that let you > define what happens when a table lookup fails: > > function index(table, slotName) > local parent = rawgettable(table, "_parent") > if parent then return parent[slotName] end > error("object "..tostring(table).." has no slot > named:"..tostring(slotName)) > end > > You can likewise define the clone method, so you're free to do things > like NewtonScript style slot creation on write if you like, to > conserve memory and instantiating time at the expense of slot lookup > time. > > It doesn't get much more "light-weight" than this. Well, this is all at what I would call level 2. I still have no idea of what a hash table looks like in the computer's memory. I would have to look at Lua's C source code to find that out. -- Jecel

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Re: simple object model (was: [self-interest] selfing Self)
by Jecel Assumpcao Jr 02 Apr '01

02 Apr '01

On Friday 30 March 2001 16:39, Steve Dekorte wrote: > How about a hash table? NewtonScript, JavaScript, and Lua use simple > hash tables for "objects". That is a great idea, which is why all these languages use it. I think Rebol also has something like this. In fact, I think that what we now have in Self is equivalent to this - just add a set of hash table-like objects to mirrors. The problem I am trying to attack is the existence of three levels: 1) base level: objects look like menus, morphs, strings, etc... 2) reflective level: objects look like hash tables (or collections of slots) 3) implementation level: you have the actual memory format of objects with tricks such as "maps" to help make cloned objects smaller Since hash tables are a very abstract data type, saying that objects are built from them still gives me no clue about the implementation level. One complication in Self 4 is that levels 1 and 2 are in Self, but 3 is in C++ (which requires different skills and tools). Self/R is meant to simplify things by having level 3 in Self as well. What I am investigating here is the possibility of bringing levels 2 and 3 closer together (ideally level 2 would be a slightly "sugar coated" version of level 3). -- Jecel

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Self-interest April 2001