[self-interest] Reusability of the Self environment

[Stefan Urbanek]

Hi Steve,

On 2004-02-29 02:25:35 +0100 Steve Dekorte <steve at dekorte.com> wrote:

> 
> On Feb 28, 2004, at 2:52 PM, Stefan Urbanek wrote:
>> In the AgentFarms suite the simulation models are (going to be) based on 
>> prototypes of objects. Currently I am using ObjectiveC language, however, 
>> classes are standing in the way of simplicity.
> 
> Hi Stefan,
> 
> You might consider using Io:
> http://www.iolanguage.com/
> 

Thanks for the reference. I have looked at it and it seems to be interesting, however it is not quite what i was looking for. It has more complicated syntax than Self, and Self seems to be more mature in the sense of runtime.

Besides that, I am really surprised, that each Self implementation wants to be self-sufficient environment with everything up to 3D graphics. Whereas it can serve as very nice computation environment for other applications. For example, in the simulator case all stuff at application level can be done with standard UI libraries/frameworks to mainain consistency with user environment. And the simulator can be done using Self, which can provide unique object model. So it is something like "each toolkit for it's purpose" instead of using "one size fits all" solution, which is not appropriate in this case.

Objective C + GNUstep/Cocoa has good application framework, Self has good computational and object-model framework for multi-agent based simulations (and possibly quite fast execution with good compiler, AFAIK). That's the reason I am looking for a marriage of the two.

Or I am missing something?

Stefan Urbanek
-- 
http://stefan.agentfarms.net

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.
- Mahatma Gandhi