Information for the Slate Distribution
--------------------------------------

 Slate is a prototype-based, multi-dispatch object-oriented language that
 runs from a highly-customizable live environment. The implementation is
 highly portable and relatively lightweight.

 The reference site for this Distribution is at http://slate.tunes.org/

 Bug reports and requests for information can be made via the Slate mailing
 list, described at: http://lists.tunes.org/mailman/listinfo/slate

License
-------

 Slate is released freely by Lee Salzman and Brian T. Rice for modification 
 and usage under the MIT Public License, as described in the file
 LICENSE provided with this Distribution.

Contributors List
-----------------

 See the CREDITS file in this Distribution.

Release Notes
-------------

 See the NEWS file in this Distribution.

Outstanding Issues
------------------

 See the BUGS file in this Distribution.

Building and Running Slate
--------------------------

 See the INSTALL file in this Distribution.

Extending and Hacking Slate
---------------------------

 Also see the INSTALL file in this Distribution.

Guide to the Slate directories
------------------------------

demo/ - Included demonstration code.
doc/ - Various guides and system manuals.
etc/ - Extra configuration files, and editing modes for Vim, Emacs, and KDE.
lib/ - The output directory for Slate's C object files.
src/ - Slate's library sources.
    contrib/ - Third-party contributions that haven't become standard yet.
    i18n/ - Internationalization / language encoding support libraries.
    lib/ - Base utilities (data structures, streams, and utilities).
    mobius/ - Self-hosted implementation.
	bootstrap/ - Bootstrap code, for the future run-time builds.
	c/ - Dealings with C-specific compiler backend and types/syntax.
	syntax/ - Parser and high-level compiler.
	optimizer/ - Optimization framework.
	    assembly/ - Assembly framework.
	    ir/ - Intermediate representation of code and optimizations.
	    mr/ - Machine representation of code for generation.
	    platform/ - Platform-specific backends.
	    	x86/ - Intel-x86 family code generation.
	vm/ - VM-related code.
	    base/ - Core layout definitions and protocols.
	    ext/ - Extensions and primitive methods.
	    gc/ - Garbage collectors / memory managers.
	    interp/ - Bytecode interpreter userland libraries.
	    platform/ - Platform-specific support.
	        include/ - Slate header files.
		unix/ - Unix / POSIX-based API support.
		beos/ - BeOS-specific API support.
		windows/ - Microsoft Windows family API support.
	persist/ - Persistence-related code.
    mop/ - Meta-object protocol.
    plugins/ - Implementation extensions and userland support code.
    smalltalk/ - Smalltalk compatibility framework.
    ui/ - User interface system, primarily graphics-related.
	SDL/ - Simple Directmedia Library support.
	X11/ - X11 server protocol support.
    unfinished/ - Incomplete packages, needing more work to be useful.
tests/ - Validation suites for the various Slate libraries.
       benchmark/ - Benchmark tests.
       regression/ - Regression tests.