The closer one looks at Smalltalk, the more one appreciates how exquisitely well designed it is. Just as Hoare said of Algol, Smalltalk too was " a language so far ahead of its time, that it was not only an improvement on its predecessors, but also on nearly all its successors". Nevertheless, Smalltalk has shortcomings, in particular with respect to modularity, security and its interplay with the dark world outside its borders.
Newspeak differs from Smalltalk in four key respects: it is purely message based, it treats classes as linguistic entities, it provides access control for methods, and it has no static state. We'll explain what all this means, how these features synergize to provide a powerful component module system and an object-cability security model, and how it leads to an attractive platform well suited to the internet age.
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