[self-interest] Info about Pep?

[Jecel Assumpcao Jr]

Stefan,
> I just learned about Pep, a Java to Self translator which was created in 
> 1997 at Sun Research.  I found the paper very interesting.  Does anybody 
> know whether Pep is part of the current Self distribution or whether it is 
> freely available?  I'd to be able to study the Self code.

Pep is not included in the distribution nor, as far as I know, is
available in any form. Self 4.1.2 does have some "left overs" from the
Pep experiment, however, such as support for 32 bit integers and new
bytecodes.

Which paper do you mean? There is Ole Agesen's 1997 one and Mario
Wolczko, Ole Agesen, and David Ungar's 1999 workshop paper:

   http://www.sunlabs.com/research/java-topics/pubs/97-pep.ps
   http://www.squeak.org/oopsla99_vmworkshop/sub.pdf
 
> I'd also be interested in opinions how Pep relates to Parcplace's Frost 
> project which seems to have taken place at the same time.  Frost is a Java 
> source/bytecode to VisualWorks Smalltalk bytecode translator plus IDE for 
> Java 1.0.2. It was open sourced a few weeks ago.

I would say that Frost was more ambitious in that it was intended
originally to become a commercial product while Pep seems to have
always been viewed as an experiment. Other than that, I would say that
both efforts were very similar.

-- Jecel