The Lively Kernel: A Wiki of Active Objects

From WikiSym 2008

Dan Ingalls, Sun Microsystems

Tuesday, September 9, 13:30-15:00 @ Main Auditorium (A101)

Invited Talk

Abstract

The Lively Kernel is a complete platform for Web programming written in JavaScript using graphics available in leading browsers. A widget set built from these elements provides a user interface kit, and the widget set is also extensible. A window-based IDE allows users to edit their applications and even the system itself.

When a user visits the Lively Kernel page, the kernel loads and runs with no installation whatsoever. The user can immediately construct new objects or applications and manipulate the environment.

The Lively Kernel is able to save its creations, and even clone itself, onto Web pages. In so doing, it defines a new form of dynamic content on the Web. Moreover, since it can run in today's browsers, it promises that wherever there is the Internet, there can be authoring of Web content.

Beyond its utility, the simplicity and completeness of the Lively Kernel make it a practical benchmark of system complexity, and a flexible laboratory for exploring new approaches to security, simplified graphics, and Web technologies in general.

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Dan Ingalls is a Distinguished Engineer at Sun Microsystems Laboratories. He is interested in dynamic languages, graphics and kernel software. He is Principal Investigator of the Lively Kernel project, a project to rethink web programming and the web itself.

Dan Ingalls is the principal architect of five generations of Smalltalk environments. He designed the byte-coded virtual machine that made Smalltalk practical in 1976. More recently, he conceived a Smalltalk written in itself and made portable and efficient by a Smalltalk-to-C translator, now known as the Squeak open-source Smalltalk.

Dan invented pop-up menus and also BitBlt, the general-purpose graphical operation that underlies most bitmap graphics systems today. As part of his work on Squeak, he designed generalizations of BitBlt to arbitrary color depth, with built-in scaling, rotation, and anti-aliasing.

Dan comes to Sun from Hewlett Packard Labs where he designed a module architecture for Squeak. He received his B.A. in Physics from Harvard University, and his M.S. in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University. He has also received the ACM Grace Hopper Award, and the ACM Software Systems Award.

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