The Slate Programming Language

An anonymous reader writes "I know that we have had an influx of new programming languages of late, but I feel that this one merits special attention. Theoretical computer scientists and long-time Squeak and LISP contributors Brian Rice and Lee Salzman have been rapidly developing a language called Slate. It draws on the various strengths of the Self, Smalltalk, and LISP languages. To quote from the website: 'Slate is a prototype-based object-oriented programming language based on Self, CLOS, and Smalltalk. Slate syntax is intended to be as familiar as possible to a Smalltalker, rather than engaging in divergent experiments in that respect.' The beta release is currently being written in Common LISP."

Comments

Deja vu

[spellraiser]

Slate is a prototype-based object-oriented programming language based on Self, CLOS, and Smalltalk.

From a recent post:

Prothon is a new industrial-strength, interpreted, prototype-based, object-oriented language that gets rid of classes altogether in the way that the Self language does.

Does this point to a trend in language design?

April fools..I hope

[rufusdufus]

Confusing things like:

3 + 4 * 5 " ==> 35 (not 23) "

and

(3 / 4) == ( 3 / 4) "==> false"

give pause for concern.

But the example code snippet for the curious @ dispatch operator uncommented and unexplained takes the cake:

"
oc@(OrderedCollection traits) copyFrom: start to: end
[| newOC |
end start ifTrue: [^ oc newEmpty].
newOC: (oc traits newSize: end + 1 - start).
start to: end do: [| :index | newOC addLast: (oc at: index)].
newOC
].
"

How could someone argue with a straight face that this gobblygook is progress in programming languages?

A better smalltalk-like language

[cryptoluddite]

There are other Smalltalk-based languages that are far better than this, for example SmallScript. The guy behind it, David Simmons, is trying to learn from Smalltalk's mistakes:

• Isolated, all-in-one environment creates a with-us or against-us situation. Smallscript can plug into .NET, and you can embed C++ or other language code directly into the program and link to external code.
• Slow performance. Smallscript is targeted more at scripting, where performance is less critical. Even the best Smalltalks average about 1/10th the speed of C on common codes. All Smalltalks are significantly slower than Java.
• Complete lack of security. Smalltalks allow dynamically loading and running code (there are even smalltalk-lets like applets), but have no provisions for Java-like sandbox security. Smallscript has some provisions for security and can leverage .NET's security.
• Unnatural language syntax for programming. Smalltalkers claim their language is more like English, but most programmers just don't like it. Smallscript has added a few C-like keywords and syntax.
• Lack of solid, stable core. One of Java's strengths is a huge core library that is unmodifiable by applications. This means that everybody knows what the core does and what is available in it. Smalltalk core is flexibly, where developers add methods to objects on a whim and re-writing the actual code for the core objects. This means that apps are not portable to future language runtime versions and can't co-exist with other applications.

This new Slate language looks just like Smalltalk only with new features that nobody actually wants, such as prototypes instead of classes. AFAICT, it hasn't improved on any of the above problems and has actually made some of them worse. IOW, it's doomed.

Scallscript is a start. It's definitely the best of the breed. Personally, I think the greatest barrier to acceptance of Slate / Smalltalk / Smallscript / Squeak / Whatever is the language syntax. Programmers just don't yoda talking like, and a slightly-off Germanic style of grammar just doesn't fit well with an activity like programming that is more mathematical and logical than like communication.