[self-interest] Re: Would 'Self' make a good scripting language?

[khayes at flash.net]

<unlurk>
Hmm, I did NOT post the stuff below even though my name is 
showing up as the poster...  I think I'll have a chat with
Scott (I know the founders of eGroups).

I can't wait to see that Self running on Linux though!

Best,
Kyle
</unlurk>

Original Article: http://www.egroups.com/list/self-interest/?start=84
>  <9901251236.aa150658- at ix> wrote: 
> Original Article: http://www.egroups.com/list/self-interest/?start=83
> > nobody at nowhere.org wrote:
> > > For an excellent example of what can happen if you don't have
> > > optional parameters in a language, take a look at the Java's
> > > GridBagConstraints object. Its a total mess. To set the
> > > constraints on an object you have about 4-6 lines of code per
> > > Component of a window- it should have been a single line.
> > > That's bound to negatively impact reliability- there's just
> > > loads more things that can go wrong.
> > 
> > Shouldn't interfaces be built with GUIs?
> 
> I personally haven't had much experience with those- I can see
> that they may well give much better performance.
> 
> > > Take a look at TCL also- buttons take a single line to
> > > create... it takes 3x more code in Java. Self is closer
> > > to Java in this respect.
> > 
> > Why not clone an existing Button and modify it?
> 
> Do you have any data to show that this is quicker? There is
> data that shows that TCL is 2-3x quicker to write for many
> applications than say Java, but no quicker/slower for others.
> It also shows that Java is about 3x quicker than C++ for a
> lot of things...
> 
> (My personal experience seemed to show that Self is slower
> than Java to write in for me. Perhaps that's me.)
> 
> > BTW, I've been using python, which has optional named parameters with 
> > defaults and I've yet to see it used for any good purpose. Mostly people
> > use them to make huge initializers (which I, and the writers of _Writing
> > Smalltalk with Style_ think is poor coding practice).
> 
> Maybe. However I am reminded of the sole British competitor at a winter
> Olympics in ski jumping 'Eddie the eagle', who inspite of 'terrible
> style' jumped further than some with good style- inspite of rather
> significant lack of practice/skill. (His skis were at about 60 degrees
> to each other, whereas other competitors kept them together.)
> 
> The judges marked him down rather severely- and he came last but one.
> There was also talk of him not being suitable material for entering
> the competition in the first place.
> 
> However the next Olympics the winners adopted his style- due to its
> aerodynamic advantages...
> 
> > I do think handling
> > variable arguments is important for certain kinds of applications though,
> > like implementing proxies.
> 
> Yeah. Look at any Unix/Dos command. Ask yourself how you would implement
> such a command in Self/Java/C++/C etc. with only fixed parameters. Then ask
> yourself 'would I have to check the documentation to use this command'
> then add 3 minutes to your coding for each such call.
> 
> >Lua has a more elegant way of dealing with these
> > than python.
> 
> How so?
>  
> > steve
> 

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