Musing out loud... [Why not Smalltalk?]

[Reinout Heeck]

Keith Ray wrote:
> 
[...]
> 
> This is very interesting. I'm really interested in a 'unified' OO
> runtime for Objective C, Smalltalk, Java, and Python.
> 
> Since Apple Objective C runtime is now open source (in Darwin) and
> Apple's Objective-C to Java bridge is open source (also in Darwin), and
> Squeak is open source, and Python is open source (and Jython -- Python
> implemented in Java), I certainly would like to see an open-source
> unification happen on MacOS X and other platforms (including MacOS 9 if
> something could be done in the short term.)


An experiment has been conducted to implement Smalltalk and Java on top
of the Self development environment/VM.


See:
'Towards a Universal Implementation Substrate for Object-Oriented
Languages'

  http://www.sun.com/research/kanban/oopsla-vm-wkshp.pdf


Pulling Python and Objective-C into this equation shouldn't be too hard.

Porting Self to other platforms is a major undertaking though. (But I've
seen remarks that a port to Linux-on-Intel is under way).


more stuff on Self at Sun
  http://self.sunlabs.com
and at MerlinTec
  http://www.merlintec.com/e_technology.html


Javaites probably know that the Self VM project was where Sun's
'hotspot' technology was developed.




Cheers!

Reinout
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