Io: a small programming language

Io is small prototype-based programming language. The ideas in Io are mostly inspired by Smalltalk[1] (all values are objects), Self[2] (prototype-based), NewtonScript[3] (differential inheritance), Act1[4] (actors and futures for concurrency), LISP[5] (code is a runtime inspectable / modifiable tree) and Lua[6] (small, embeddable). Io offers a more flexible language with more scalable concurrency in a smaller, simpler package than traditional languages and is well suited for use as both scripting and embedding within larger projects. Io is implemented in C and it's actor based concurrency model is built on coroutines and asynchronous i/o. It supports exceptions, incremental garbage collection and weak links. Io has bindings for many multiplatform libraries including Sockets, OpenGL, FreeType, PortAudio and others as well as some modules for transparent distributed objects and a user interface toolkit written in Io. This presentation will include an overview of the language and d...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2005
• Where: OOPSLA
• Authors: Steve Dekorte
• Keywords: Actor Based Concurrency, Incremental Garbage Collection, OOPSLA 2005, Prototype-based Programming Language