4 ms·

Maybe Self was the best chance. We all know that java has won, but Self could have been Java (and thus the success of smalltalk). Maybe my understanding of this

by nickik 12y ago

Maybe Self was the best chance. We all know that java has won, but Self could have been Java (and thus the success of smalltalk). Maybe my understanding of this history is imcomplety, if it is please help me out. Java should never have reached where it is today. Im not hatting on java btw. Just historiclly speaking, java was a embeded language that was pushed for the internet. At the same time Sun had the well advanced Self project in devlopment. One of the major reasons that java was selected was its small stack based bytecode. Self was the hotbed of compiler research and could run rings around java. Self is a small language and you need less lines of code then java. Self would probebly not have been much heavier on the wire. So why did the people at sun push Java and not Self? I can not explain it. The only explaition, is that they just did not know what they have. Anybody has a better idea, is there something I completly misunderstand?

ltta 12y ago
Java probably won because of its C-inspired syntax. At that point smalltalk was falling behind and C++ started to take off. To me Java was always meant as a better C++. At least that is my guess. A lot of the people behind Self went on to work on the JVM JIT and later the Chrome V8 engine. Self produced many influential ideas in the JIT space like polymorphic inline caches and deoptimization and stack rewriting. Some of the papers published by the Self group at UCSB are fascinating.
- nickik 12y ago
  The syntax is something, but they could easly have written another parser for sell and make it look very C like. That would have been 100x less work. Many of the people that worked on Self later worked on Strongtalk, that was bought and is the bases for the current JVM, and yes now everything that was in Self is in the JVM. So my point is, why not just start where they ended up anyway. In one of David Ungars talks he said something like "they probebly just didn't know what they had". Thats about the only thing that makes sence, but maybe somebody knows more then me.
ww520 12y ago
Self has reincarnated as Javascript.
- nickik 12y ago
  Yes, but thats the point. We could have had what we have now 10 years ago, or even more. Sure hardwar got faster as well, but im talking quality of the VM.

by nickik 12y ago

ltta 12y ago

Java probably won because of its C-inspired syntax. At that point smalltalk was falling behind and C++ started to take off. To me Java was always meant as a better C++. At least that is my guess. A lot of the people behind Self went on to work on the JVM JIT and later the Chrome V8 engine. Self produced many influential ideas in the JIT space like polymorphic inline caches and deoptimization and stack rewriting. Some of the papers published by the Self group at UCSB are fascinating.

nickik 12y ago
The syntax is something, but they could easly have written another parser for sell and make it look very C like. That would have been 100x less work. Many of the people that worked on Self later worked on Strongtalk, that was bought and is the bases for the current JVM, and yes now everything that was in Self is in the JVM. So my point is, why not just start where they ended up anyway. In one of David Ungars talks he said something like "they probebly just didn't know what they had". Thats about the only thing that makes sence, but maybe somebody knows more then me.

ww520 12y ago

Self has reincarnated as Javascript.

nickik 12y ago
Yes, but thats the point. We could have had what we have now 10 years ago, or even more. Sure hardwar got faster as well, but im talking quality of the VM.