The other viable choice was to have application developers write everything for the Newton in C or C++. By giving them a much higher-level framework (Scheme/Self-like language + UI views/interaction + indexed object store) we were able to get more functionality into the product/ecosystem faster and more reliably. At least I think so. Also, we didn't have much RAM to play with, and were able to do some nice memory-saving tricks underneath.
Well, JavaScript was pretty darn close to NewtonScript, except for the bizarre way arrays work and the weird semi-implicit prototype inheritance. Since JavaScript has taken over the world, I wish that stuff was cleaner. :)
And speaking of prototype inheritance, I still think that makes a lot of sense in some domains (like UI programming) but hasn't gotten much traction.
Beyond that, having an integrated object store (as opposed to a filesystem) is an idea from the 90's that really should get more mainstream attention.
The other viable choice was to have application developers write everything for the Newton in C or C++. By giving them a much higher-level framework (Scheme/Self-like language + UI views/interaction + indexed object store) we were able to get more functionality into the product/ecosystem faster and more reliably. At least I think so. Also, we didn't have much RAM to play with, and were able to do some nice memory-saving tricks underneath.