The Smalltalk programming language is currently undergoing a standardization process by the X3J20 committee that will lead to the creation of a ANSI standard definition of the language. The job of a standards committee is to codify existing practice, not to invent new technology. For this reason, X3J20 only considers features for the Smalltalk standard that have been proven and widely adopted by existing implementations. While this is appropriate behavior for X3J20, a vibrant and useful programming language needs to evolve and adapt to changing needs of programmers and the global computing environment. This requires discussion and experimentation with possible language extensions.
The purpose of this workshop is to provide a forum for language designers, implementors and users to identify needs and share proposals for extending the Smalltalk language. This sharing should provide insight and perhaps lead to consensus on commonly desired extensions. Ultimately this should result in extensions that become commonly accepted and which will feed into future rounds of the standardization process.
The workshop participants will examine and evaluate proposals for extending the Smalltalk programming language and its core class library. Participants are asked to present specific proposals for extending Smalltalk. Where possible, participant are encouraged to describe experience utilizing implemented extensions. Proposals that address similar problems will be grouped so they may be compared and contrasted. Group discussion will consider the merit of "competing" proposals and attempt to achieve consensus on preferred alternatives. A compendium of the proposals and a summary of the discussion will serve as a record of the workshop.
Perspective participants must submit a 2-5 page position paper describing their proposed extension by August 5, 1996. Email submissions are preferred. Participants will be notified of acceptance by August 20. The workshop will be held October 7, 1996 in conjunction with OOPSLA'96 in San Jose, California. Conference registration is required.
Proposals should address the following topics:
Extensions to be considered might include but are not limited to: modularity, name spaces, multiple inheritance, instance specific behavior, external language interfacing, multi-methods, and static typing.