[Grace-core] Object initialization

[Marco Servetto]

Dear Kim,
I've been working on circular initialization for the last year and so,
I know their approach quite well.

Is also important to know other related work on the area:
Freedom before commitement
http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2048142
(uses chained constructor calls, order of magnitude simpler that masked types)

Delayed types
http://research.microsoft.com/apps/pubs/default.aspx?id=67979
(while objects moves between different scopes, their initialization
status changes.
Very theoretical and complex work; also present an (already proved
unsound) simplification over C#

Value recursion challenge
http://research.microsoft.com/apps/pubs/default.aspx?id=79951
(uses a limited form of laziness, requires dynamic checks)

Simultaneous slots declarations in Newspeack 0.08.

The last two references remainder us that the problem of circular
initialization is more a semantic issue than a mere type system
guarantee.

Moreover, we are submitting a work over circular initialization to
Ecoop *today*.
(Marco Servetto, Julian Mackay, Alex Potanin and James Noble)

We will provide a version of our submitted work *very* soon.



Marco.