From a technical perspective, BETA provides the following unique feature:
Classes and Procedures are unified to one concept, a Pattern.
Classes are defined as properties/attributes of objects. This means that a class cannot be instantiated without an explicit object context.
A consequence of the above is that BETA supports nested classes; and BETA's nested classes are indeed one of the primary sources of inspiration for Java's inner classes.
Classes can be virtually defined (much like virtual methods can in most other object-oriented programming languages).
Virtual entities (such as methods and classes) are never overwritten; instead they are refined or specialized.
Cetus Links: BETA -
Meta Description: [ Cetus Links: 16604 Links on Objects and Components / BETA ]
gbeta - Generalization of BETA language via interpreter/compiler, strict, static type-checked. Ph.D. project. Descriptions of modularization, lazy analysis, compatibility; tutorial, papers, FAQ, downloads, bug reports. [Open Source, GPL]
MetaBeta Project - Goal: design, implement meta-level interface for statically typed, compiled language BETA, to extend expressiveness of language so programs can be written for it, not just in it. Functionality depending on a language implementation is impossible or very hard to express in most languages.
Mjølner System - An Object-Oriented multi-platform rapid application development environment.