[Self-interest] Proposal for a modernized Self dialect

[Mario Wolczko]

Eric,

A quick historical note on the idea of a distributed object world:

In the late 1980s a small group (including me) at the University of Manchester pursued this particular goal in a project called Mushroom.  In addition to trying to build a processor specialized for Smalltalk, we also looked at making the world distributed.  I wrote a proposal for a Smalltalk-derived language called Must which added capabilities to Smalltalk.  Rhod Davies did a PhD on optimizing the network communications between nodes in a distributed object world, leveraging our object-based memory architecture.  You can find papers and theses from that project at www.wolczko.com/mushroom.

The project had high aims but neither the machine nor the software were completed. My contribution did, however, get me a job with the Self group ;-)

Mario