Programming as an Experience: The Inspiration for Self

  • Randall B. Smith
  • David Ungar
Conference paper
First Online:
Part of the Lecture Notes in Computer Science book series (LNCS, volume 952)

Abstract

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 simple objects 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.

Keywords

User Interface Graphical Object Assignment Slot Tangible Object Data Slot 
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
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Copyright information

© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 1995

Authors and Affiliations

  • Randall B. Smith
    • 1
  • David Ungar
    • 1
  1. 1.Sun Microsystems LaboratoriesMountain ViewUSA

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