21K views · Sep 10, 2013 · 21:01 · 2 HN recommenders · 10 mentions · discussed 2013–2024
A 1995 Sun Microsystems film about the Self programming language, a prototype-based Smalltalk relative, showing its live, graphical programming environment.
Why Hacker News points people here: HN uses it as the canonical demo of Self's integrated, direct-manipulation environment whenever prototypal inheritance or live programming comes up.
“This is a good demo of what could be done in the Self environment”HN comment, 2016
“Related, and worth a watch”
Shows programming and graphics closely interwoven in Self.
Related, and worth a watch: this video It's a video about the Self language, which I think was designed using the principles in this paper. I like it because (like Oberon) it shows that programming and graphics can be much more closely interwoven than we're used to. They were doing it in the 90's. Then we lost it somewhere along the way by trying to make everything big and user-facing.
“This is a good demo of what could be done in the Self environment”
Demo of what can be done in the Self environment.
I'd point to the work done on tangible UIs and programming environments for that. For example, the work on tangible UIs eg- Self: link This is a good demo of what could be done in the Self environment: this video GUI and non-programmability are tangential things. I don't think they're implicitly bound together.
“Here it is on YouTube (Quicktime movie didn't have sound for me). Quality isn't as high, though.”
YouTube copy of the Self movie.
Here it is on YouTube (Quicktime movie didn't have sound for me). Quality isn't as high, though. this video
Mainly videos Self this video Xerox Star User Interface link link Tektronix 4404 Smalltalk link The Smalltalk-80 Programming System link The Final Demonstration of the Xerox 'Star' computer link Symbolics Hypertext Document link
Self this video Xerox Star User Interface link link Tektronix 4404 Smalltalk link The Smalltalk-80 Programming System link The Final Demonstration of the Xerox 'Star' computer link Symbolics Hypertext Document link Warren Teitelman work at Xerox PARC link The Mesa/Cedar programming environment link Steve Jobs internal demo of NeXTSTEP 3, link Alan Kay on Xerox PARC work link link link
“The project draws inspiration from Self [2]”
I'm creating a Rails/Django equivalent in TypeScript called Huncwot [1]. The project draws inspiration from Self [2] and aims to combine a framework, an editor and infrastructure into a unified programming environment. In other words, I'm on a quest for the Holy Grail of Programming. ;) [1]: link [2]: this video
“I'd like to tightly combine a semi-visual programming editor, the tooling and the runtime/infrastructure into one”
Example of integrated editor, tooling and runtime environment.
I'd like to tightly combine a semi-visual programming editor, the tooling and the runtime/infrastructure into one «thing» as shown in this video [1]. You write a bit of code, you drag and drop another bit, and almost instantly it becomes «online» - the compilation / the deployment process are somehow hidden and the configuration is minimal. It just works, so you can focus on solving the actual business needs of your application - but that's a long term vision... ;) I must mention DarkLang [2] that seems to have a similar goal, but a different approach: Kretes builds on top of VS Code, and uses one of the most popular programming languages while DarkLang builds not only their editor from scratch, but they also introduced a new programming language. I find their project ambitious and inspiring - a potential game changer imho [1]: this video [2]: link
“does anyone have any resources or stories about Self?”
Asks for resources on Self, cited as source for prototypal inheritance.
I've heard it described as "Scheme in C's clothing." I remember reading something about how that's a misconception, but I can't recall where. On that note, does anyone have any resources or stories about Self? [0] (The language from which JS inherited prototypal inheritance.) [0] this video
“Here's an official movie released by Sun Microsystems”
Official Sun movie showing Self's shared visual environment.
This existed in the 90s! The Self programming language[0] took Smalltalk's existing visual approach and extended it to be a full visual environment with interactive animations and physical metaphors, giving you a literal "desktop" to work on. Later versions of Self also supported working on a single "world" over the network, where the other users' objects and "hands" (cursors) would be visible to you. Here's an official movie released by Sun Microsystems: this video [0]: link
“Here is a video about it from Sun in 1995”
Sun's 1995 video on the Kansas environment in Self.
This reminds me of the "Kansas" environment in the Self programming language. Here is a video about it from Sun in 1995: this video More interesting search features were added after this video was made.
