Dear Grace Supporters
This is another brief update on our progress on the Grace project to
date.
We have been working our way through the language design, and have
sketched out "version 0.1" drafts of most of the main operational
language
constructs. We're starting to think about type and module systems.
We are posting these as design notes (Gracenotes :-) to the blog at
http://gracelang.org - and we'd really appreciate your comments if
you have time to look over the posts there. We have found that
blog posts and attached comments make it easier to organise
discussions than carrying on conversations on mailing lists.
We hope you'll subscribe to the blog, there are RSS feeds
for posts -
http://gracelang.org/applications/feed/
and comments -
http://gracelang.org/applications/comments/feed/
(these are also available at the bottom of the blog page)
and, as you have time, to provide comments and feedback.
We do want this to be as open a process as possible.
If you would like posting rights on the blog, you will need to send
black(a)cs.pdx.edu a username and cleartext password.
Finally, we are starting to plan some Grace meetings next year:
* UK/Europe late February - around the time of the ECOOP PC meeting
* West Coast US late May/early June - meeting aligned with PLDI
* Lancaster late July - before or after ECOOP
* Portland late October - before or after OOPSLA
We are starting to think seriously about the February meeting.
If you're likely to be able to make it to that meeting, please let
us know - and also if you have any preferences about timing
(just before the 25th or after the 26th of February) or location
(UK South East vs Europe - most likely Darmstadt) please let
us know too.
cheers
Kim, Andrew & James
PS: for detailed design work, we have a second (higher traffic)
email list: "grace-core" for the core language design, along with a
wiki and svn repository. If you would really like to follow our
emerging work-in-progress very closely, then email black(a)cs.pdx.edu
including a username/password pair generated by "htpasswd -n
<username of your choice>" and we can grant you access.
Dear Supporters
This is a brief update on our progress on the new OO language
project to date, an outline of our plans for the near future, and a
suggestion of some ways in which you could become more directly
involved.
In the four months since ECOOP, we (Kim Bruce, Andrew Black and James
Noble) have made some progress on the language design. We have refined
the principles from the manifesto, and identified a target user model
for the language. We are working towards a "strawman" language design,
which we hope will be ready for your critique by the end of the year.
We have chosen a name for the language: Grace.
Last week, we formally announced the project to the wider OOPL
community with two panels at OOPSLA/SPLASH - one at the educators'
symposium and one at the main conference, the later also including
Alex Buckley and Jens Palsberg as discussants who were not part of the
language effort. We've attached the slides we presented at the
panel. The panel was covered in the CACM blog:
http://cacm.acm.org/blogs/blog-cacm/100389-grace-a-manifesto-for-a-new-educ…
and also reported by other bloggers. While it is still early, we feel
that the panels were generally well received, and several new people
have indicated they support the effort - and perhaps that they will be
able to contribute substantially in the new year.
As part of ensuring that the language design work is as open as
possible, we have established a rudimentary web-site and blog for the
project, at http://gracelang.org. We plan to try to write short
articles at least weekly to provide evidence of ongoing progress in
the project. We have also established a mailing list,
grace-interest(a)cs.pdx.edu, for supporters and others interested in the
project. If you would like to join this list, you can register here:
https://mailhost.cecs.pdx.edu/mailman/listinfo/grace-interest
To support detailed design work, we have a second (higher traffic)
email list: "grace-core" for the core language designers, along with a
wiki and svn repository. If you would really like to follow our
emerging work-in-progress very closely, then email black(a)cs.pdx.edu
including a username/password pair generated by "htpasswd -n
<username of your choice>" and we can grant you access.
If you would like posting rights on the blog, you will need to send
black(a)cs.pdx.edu a username and cleartext password.
This brings us to the first place where we really need immediate help:
managing the public "face" of the project, including the blog. If you
would like to help with this, please let us know.
Finally, we are starting to plan some Graceful meetings for next year.
Since we expect to have a strawman specification soon, there should be
lots to talk about! We would like to start planning these meetings
now, so here are some possibilities:
* UK/Europe late February - around the time of the ECOOP PC meeting
* West Coast US late May/early June - meeting aligned with PLDI
* Lancaster late July - before or after ECOOP
* Portland late October - before or after OOPSLA
If you would like to participate in (or help us organize!) such a
meeting, please let us know. Please also tell us if there is anything
else that you think should be happening, and how you would like to
help.
cheers
Kim, Andrew & James
test
--
Adrien Thebo <finch(a)cat.pdx.edu>
Computer Action Team <support(a)cat.pdx.edu>
Maseeh College of Engineering and Computer Science
Portland State University, 503-725-5420
