🚀 go-pugleaf

Disclaimer: I am working with some of the people from Mjolner, the company
that sells the Mjolner Beta System, as far as I know the only implementation
of Beta to date. So I'm probably biased on Beta. Still, the following is my
own opinion. I do not expect Mjolner nor Aarhus University to share it.

I have good experience with the Mjolner Beta system. Before I knew it I
was told that learning how to write applications for the Mac would take me
half a year. When I started learning Beta and MacEnv - the Mac application
framework that is part of the Mjolner BETA system - after 2 weeks I found
I had completed my first small Mac application.

lhp@daimi.aau.dk (Lasse Hiller|e Petersen) writes:

...
>One other OOP language that deserves mentioning, is Beta. Beta is a new
>language being developed at Nordic universities in the Mjolner project.
>(Contact mjolner@mjolner.dk for information.)
>Beta is a compiler for the MPW-environment. It uses a strong and elegant
>abstraction mechanism, called a "pattern" that joins classes and procedures.
>(While this is admittedly elegant, I find it extremistic and of questionable
>value.)

Maybe. But when classes and procedures are the same (they're all patterns),
this means that when you have virtual procedures you also have "virtual
classes" (yes!), which have proven to be a useful concept. Using e.g. the
virtual class 'eventHandler' in MacEnv comes in so natural you don't even
think about the fact that you're using a concept that doesn't exist in
other programming languages. Possibly it will some day.

>At Information&Media Science, we have been using Beta in an introductory
>programming course for three years now. In my opinion Beta is not suited
>for this role, as the compiler is clumsy and slow, generating huge code.

The BETA compiler takes too long time to compile, agree. It's being worked
on, so I don't think it will stay that way. They're also working on an
interpreter. That's going to be a nice developer's tool.

Ole
--

 Ole V. Villumsen              
 Computer Science Department, Aarhus University, Denmark
 ovillumsen@daimi.aau.dk