In every argument about dynamic language performance for the last 15 years, Self has been the final word: "If Self can reach 1/4 to 1/2 the speed of native C code, why can't JavaScript? Why can't Ruby?" Well, JavaScript and Lua are slowly getting there, and Ruby might in a few more years. Even if Self could only reach that level of performance occasionally, it has been an inspiration to many others.

It's great to hear that an old and storied project has been released as open source. The best of luck to them, and I look forward to reading their compiler source code some day!