
The BETA Programming Language - adgasf
http://cs.au.dk/~beta/
======
wrs
An oversimplified story is that BETA is the response from the creators of
SIMULA (arguably the first object-oriented language) to the languages it
inspired (e.g., Smalltalk and C++). More here: [1]

There are some interesting and unique concepts in BETA, but IIRC the most
interesting is the "pattern":

>The abstraction mechanisms include class, procedure, function, coroutine,
process, exception and many more, all unified into the ultimate abstraction
mechanism: the pattern. In addition to the pattern, BETA has subpattern,
virtual pattern and pattern variable. This unification gives a uniform
treatment of abstraction mechanisms and a number of new ones. Most object-
oriented languages have classes, subclasses and virtual procedures, and some
have procedure variables. Since a pattern is a generalization of abstraction
mechanisms like class, procedure, function, etc., the notions of subpattern,
virtual pattern and pattern variable also apply to these abstraction
mechanisms. In addition to the above mentioned abstraction mechanisms, the
pattern subsumes notions such as generic package and task type as known from
Ada.

[1]
[http://kristennygaard.org/FORSKNINGSDOK_MAPPE/F_BETA_hovedsi...](http://kristennygaard.org/FORSKNINGSDOK_MAPPE/F_BETA_hovedside.html)

------
bcantrill
As I learned on a trip to Denmark years ago, BETA remains relevant because of
the students who worked on it[1], many of whom have gone on to do important
work in languages and virtual machines. Don't be surprised to see some of
their nostalgia should they happen to spot this thread!

[1] [http://dtrace.org/blogs/bmc/2012/10/08/a-systems-software-
do...](http://dtrace.org/blogs/bmc/2012/10/08/a-systems-software-double-
header-surge-and-goto/)

------
mrmuagi
Curious if anyone finds this language pretty to look at, a lot of punctuation
:/

[http://cs.au.dk/~beta/doc/beta-intro/Quick-Reference-
Card.ht...](http://cs.au.dk/~beta/doc/beta-intro/Quick-Reference-Card.html)
[http://cs.au.dk/~beta/BETAbookExamples/BETAbookCode.html](http://cs.au.dk/~beta/BETAbookExamples/BETAbookCode.html)

~~~
pmontra

        (# Heavy: ^Syntax; 
        do 
          &NotBeautiful[]->ToLookAt[];
          &PleaseRemove[]->AllThoseRandomCharacters[];
        #)
        --- there must be another way ---
        --- and use spaces ---

~~~
tyingq
Only needs a few tweaks to be valid strict/warnings compliant Perl :)

    
    
      (# Heavy: ^Syntax; 
      do {
        &NotBeautiful()=>ToLookAt();
        &PleaseRemove()=>AllThoseRandomCharacters();} 
      )
      ;sub NotBeautiful{};sub ToLookAt{}
      ;sub PleaseRemove{};sub AllThoseRandomCharacters{}

------
mpweiher
Time to take another look...

...hey, for loops that take just a single integer and implicitly loop from 1.
Interesting.

Just checked my (Objective-)C loops, and of the 500 with

    
    
       for (i=  
    

440 start with

    
    
       for (i=0;
    
    

That's 88%. So looping on integers that implicitly forms a range starting from
0 seems like a reasonable addition for Objective-Smalltalk. "Looping" is
already defined as higher order functions on collections and ranges, so all we
need to do is map the number to the appropriate range and done.

    
    
       -(void)do:aBlock
       {
          [[@(0) to:[self sub:@(1)]] do:aBlock];
       }
     
    

Try it out:

    
    
       > 4 do:[ :i | stdout println:i ]
       0
       1
       2
       3
    

Nice. Thank you, BETA!

------
bakul
A much better object oriented language than C++. I was not fond of its syntax
but liked its uniform treatment of a number of different abstract mechanisms
via “patterns”.

------
lisper
Heh, back in the 90s I designed a DSL for programming mobile robots called
ALFA. It was an acronym: A Language For Action. I had planned to design a
follow up language called BETA: Better Even Than ALFA. But it never happened,
and now I've been scooped. Oh well.

~~~
projektfu
You could go the other way with BRAVO

~~~
lisper
I could make it the same language: Bravo Recapitulates ALFA Very Overtly :-)

------
pjmlp
I own the language reference, which I got as gift for attending ECOOP'99 in
Lisbon.

The language is quite powerful, sadly its concepts never managed to get into
mainstream.

~~~
bakul
Is this "Object oriented programming in the beta programming language" by
Madsen, Møller-Pedersen & Nygaard? ISBN-0201624303. It's available online now.

~~~
pjmlp
Yep.

