'''Self''' is ana [[General-purpose programming language|general-purpose]], [[High-level programming language|high-level]], [[Object-oriented programming|object-oriented]] [[programming language]] based on the concept of ''[[Prototype-based programming|prototypes]]''. Self began as a dialect of [[Smalltalk]], being [[dynamically typed]] and using [[just-in-time compilation]] (JIT) with the prototype-based approach to objects: it was first used as an experimental test system for language design in the 1980s and 1990s. In 2006, Self was still being developed as part of the Klein project, which was a Self virtual machine written fully in Self. The latest version, 2017.1 was released in May 2017.<ref>{{cite web |title=Self "Mandarin" 2017.1 |url=https://blog.selflanguage.org/2017/05/24/self-mandarin-2017-1/ |date=24 May 2017 |access-date=24 May 2017 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170524053153/https://blog.selflanguage.org/2017/05/24/self-mandarin-2017-1/ |archive-date=24 May 2017}}</ref>
Several just-in-time compilation techniques were pioneered and improved in Self research as they were required to allow a very high level object oriented language to perform at up to half the speed of optimized [[C (programming language)|C]]. Much of the development of Self took place at [[Sun Microsystems]], and the techniques they developed were later deployed for [[Java (programming language)|Java]]'s [[HotSpot (virtual machine)|HotSpot]] [[virtual machine]].
