[self-interest] Why did Sun stop development of Self ?

Jecel Assumpcao Jr jecel at merlintec.com
Thu Dec 28 19:40:40 UTC 2000


Thilo,

the short answer is: to focus on Java.

Note that Sun also killed TCL and Spring OS at that time (the latter to
focus on Solaris).

I can only offer you an outsider's view, but it is interesting to
compare what Java and Self were in 1995. Java was small and there were
many missing pieces, but a killer application has just appeared that
could take advantage of its modular nature: platform independent
applications for the web. Self was large and monolithic, but flexible
and feature packed. It probably seemed easier to grow Java as needed
than to slim down Self.

-- Jecel



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