Programming as an Experience: The Inspiration for Self

The Self system attempts to integrate intellectual and non-intellectual aspects of programming to create an overall experience. The language semantics, user interface, and implementation each help create this integrated experience. The language semantics embed the programmer in a uniform world of bjects that can be modified without appealing to definitions of abstractions. In a similar way, the graphical interface puts the user into a uniform world of tangible objects that can be directly manipulated and changed without switching modes. The implementation strives to support the world-of-objects illusion by minimizing perceptible pauses and by providing true source-level semantics without sacrificing performance. As a side benefit, it encourages factoring. Although we see areas that fall short of the vision, on the whole, the language, interface, and implementation conspire so that the Self programmer lives and acts in a consistent and malleable world of objects.

• Type: Conference
• Year: 1995
• Where: ECOOP
• Authors: Randall B. Smith, David Ungar
• Keywords: ECOOP 1995, Language Semantics, Programming Languages, True Source-level Semantics, Uniform World