@Edward de Jong / Beads Project "Javascript is way more directly related to Actionscript 2 and its predecessors than Self."

The timing is wrong for this. Javascript was released in 1995. Actionscript 1.0 was released in 2000, the first version to support OOP, and it copied its object model (prototype based inheritance) from Javascript. Actionscript 2.0 was released 2003 and introduced class-based inheritance. Javascript was designed by Brendan Eich. The language was originally codenamed Mocha, later LiveScript, and the initial idea was "Scheme for the browser". However, Netscape had entered a partnership with Sun to include Java in the browser, and this led to a new requirement from management that LiveScript should be a companion to Java. So it was renamed Javascript and given a C-like syntax. Brendan Eich himself describes Javascript as "a quickie love-child of C and Self" (from his blog: https://brendaneich.com/2008/04/popularity/). Why was Javascript derived from Self? The designers of Self were now working for Sun, and the Sun/Netscape partnership may explain how Self became the direct ancestor of Javascript (I'm speculating on this point). Javascript could not use Self syntax, of course, due to the management requirement for a C-like syntax, hence the need to innovate and create a hybrid language.

Would it be possible to thread that conversation so that it doesn’t wash out #general 😅

I maintained an open source Flash SWF reader/writer at the time and saw the transition from Flash 4 to 5 at the lowest level. Remember thinking that Macromedia had just copied the JS scoping/prototype model directly.

@Doug Moen @Edward de Jong / Beads Project @comma — Like Nick said, let's move the conversation about AS2 and JS into this thread, so that it doesn't create excessive scrollback in #C5T9GPWFL.

Also, we've had this conversation already, though Slack won't let us remind ourselves...