Dr. Gilad Bracha: The Newspeak Programming Language
Coordinates: March 11, 2008, 16:00-17:00,
	HPI, B-E.2 (library)
	Potsdam, Germany

Abstract: Newspeak is a new dynamic language, descended from  
Smalltalk and Self. Like Self, Newspeak is a message based language:  
all computation - even an object's own access to its internal  
structure - is performed by sending messages to objects. However,  
like Smalltalk, Newspeak is class-based. Classes can be nested  
arbitrarily, as in Beta. Since all names denote message sends, all  
classes are virtual; in particular, superclasses are virtual, so all  
classes act as mixins. There is no static state in Newspeak. Instead,  
top level classes act as module definitions, which are independent,  
immutable, self-contained parametric namespaces. They can be  
instantiated into modules which may be stateful and mutually  
recursive. Naturally, like its predecessors, Newspeak is reflective:  
a mirror library allows structured access to the program meta-level.  
In this talk, we'll expand on these topics, illustrating interesting  
uses such as class hierarchy inheritance and domain specific language  
support.

Bio: Gilad Bracha is a Distinguished Engineer at Cadence Design  
Systems. Previously, he was a Computational Theologist and  
Distinguished Engineer at Sun Microsystems. He is co-author of the  
Java Language Specification, and a researcher in the area of object- 
oriented programming languages. Prior to joining Sun, he worked on  
Strongtalk, the Animorphic Smalltalk System. He received his B.Sc in  
Mathematics and Computer Science from Ben Gurion University in Israel  
and a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Utah.

http://www.swa.hpi.uni-potsdam.de/

Getting there: http://www.hpi.uni-potsdam.de/hpi/campus/anfahrt.html