[self-interest] Early Self Syntax

[Jecel Assumpcao Jr]

On Sunday 27 June 2004 11:34, Michael Feathers wrote:
> IIRC, I read someplace that the earliest version of Self was
> text-based.  I was wondering if the syntax is described any place.

The textual syntax is still there - you can run Self in a terminal and 
never fire up the GUI if you don't want it. What has changed is that 
applications are now normally created graphically and then a text 
version is generated automatically by the "transporter". This is far 
less readable than the old hand written sources.

The programming manual includes the syntax, but what was described in 
the very first paper ("power of simplicity") is mostly valid today.

http://research.sun.com/self/language.html

For a C-like Self variant, take a look at NewtonScript.

http://www.cc.gatech.edu/~schoedl/projects/NewtonScript/
http://wsmith.best.vwh.net/works.html

Io and Slate might also be interesting for you, though they make do 
without an object literal syntax.

http://www.iolanguage.com/
http://slate.tunes.org

-- Jecel