<html><body bgcolor="#FFFFFF"><div>Ah! A few years ago, Ruby wasn't all that prevalent. It caught on because sexy startups used it. Startups use random language X because there's no one to tell a founder, "you can't do that." When you know that obscure language X gives you a competitive advantage, go for it, and are successful, language X gets less obscure.</div><div><br></div><div>There are certain to be lots of Rubyists who go looking for the next big thing. They're happy with their eigenclasses for now. I think the worst thing about JavaScript is, no ones figured out what to do with prototypes! And then you look at Self. Self's authors have clearly figured out what to do with prototypes. </div><div><br></div><div>Since most browsers have a knockoff of the Self VM these days, has anyone considered using JavaScript as a compilation target? Self sure is a pretty language.</div><div><br></div><div>What was the name of it? Someone did outliners for Lively Kernel, and the result was decidedly reminiscent of Self. Might be fun to slap a Self grammar on it and find out where the semantic limitations of JavaScript really lie. </div><div><br>On Feb 9, 2011, at 2:48 PM, Michael Latta <<a href="mailto:lattam@mac.com">lattam@mac.com</a>> wrote:<br><br></div><div></div><blockquote type="cite"><div>
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<p>For the most part languages are about ecosystems. The successful Smalltalk implementations have bigger libraries, more trained developers, butter marketing, etc. And Smalltalk is a nich compared to ruby, erlang, and the other "newer" languages that get attention these days. Without a corporate sponsor self is unlikely to be more than a research project. <br>
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Michael<br>
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On Feb 9, 2011, at 3:13 PM, Duke Normandin <<a href="mailto:dukeofperl%40ml1.net"><a href="mailto:dukeofperl@ml1.net">dukeofperl@ml1.net</a></a>> wrote:<br>
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> On Wed, 9 Feb 2011, Michael Latta wrote:<br>
> <br>
>> Self was not available until after Smalltalk lost the battle to<br>
>> java. Not having a windows port also still hurts it's<br>
>> adoption. Mostly though I would say it never got critical mass in<br>
>> terms of the community behind it.<br>
> <br>
> So, would it be fair to say that Sun "killed" Self by opting for Java<br>
> to go head-to-head with Smalltalk? Then when Java was "safe", it<br>
> released Self.<br>
> <br>
> Of course with Self available only on Sparcs, it never had a chance to<br>
> get the critical mass that it needed to show its stuff.<br>
> <br>
> That was then! What about now? Surely being available on the OS X and<br>
> Linux should make all the difference in the world. Is the Smalltalk<br>
> community mostly on Windoze, and will stay put until Self is ported to<br>
> it?<br>
> -- <br>
> Duke<br>
> <br>
> <br>
> ------------------------------------<br>
> <br>
> Yahoo! Groups Links<br>
> <br>
> <br>
> <br>
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