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Programming Technology

Lightweight Languages Workshop Webcast from MIT 50

Posted by michael from the lively-discussions dept.
Jonathan Edwards writes "The Lightweight Languages Workshop (LL4) will be webcast live from MIT tomorrow. Previous years have seen lively discussions between the proponents of languages like Perl, Python, and Scheme. Check out the program at the website."
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Lightweight Languages Workshop Webcast from MIT More

Lightweight Languages Workshop Webcast from MIT

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  • Lightweight? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by spectral ( 158121 ) on Friday December 03, 2004 @12:55PM (#10987636)
    What makes a language 'lightweight' ? When I think of Perl, I don't immediately think a lightweight/simple language to learn. And then I look at the Program (Schedule) on the website and see that it says English is the most lightweight language of all, which doesn't make any sense to me unless you consider how much code it takes to get something accomplished as a feature of the language, so that since English and Perl don't require as much code to get difficult tasks completed, they're 'lightweight' languages?

    That definition seems backwards. Can someone please enlighten me?

    • Re:Lightweight? (Score:3, Informative)

      by evin ( 31167 )

      At the LL1 page [mit.edu] they define a lightweight language as one which is easy to learn.

      Following the analogy of heavyweight vs lightweight threads, I initially thought it would be about languages which are either very small once compiled, or that have simple interpreters.

      But who am I to question some guys at MIT?

      • I agree with your definition, but I would emphasize "easy to implement." The notion of "easy to learn" is just plain silly.

        The whole idea behind a lightweight language is something that is easy to port to an embedded system, something that is easy to incorporate as a macro or extension language in other software.

        • I agree. "easy to learn" by that definition C++ is lightweight it was easy to learn( for me anyways). VB would also be considered lightweight. Try getting VB installed on pretty much anything. I always had problems deploying a VB app I never seem to have all 1000 dlls the VB required to run that a damn app
          • Keep in mind, though, that the DLLs are typically not considered part of the language. What matters is the core of the language; syntax and semantics, special cases, etc.

            The way I see it, C++ is a heavy language because there are many different constructs, each with a different syntax. I guess the same applies to VB, although my exposure to it has been very limited.

    • Re:Lightweight? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by RAMMS+EIN ( 578166 ) on Friday December 03, 2004 @05:44PM (#10991692) Homepage Journal
      There have been many discussions about what exactly defines a lightweight language. The only conclusion I can draw from them is that people can't agree on a clear definition.

      My understanding of the concept is a language that has a small core, flexible enough to grow to many needs. This allows for small, simple implementations of said core, although such implementations are not a necessary criterion.

      Scheme is a good example of a language that fits the definition. Scheme implementations are simple to write, yet Scheme is a very flexible (and therefore powerful) language.

      Controversially, I would see Perl as a rather heavyweight language. The various different ways things can be written down and the inclusion of regular expressions in the core would seem to make Perl a rather heavy language.

      I acknowledge that my views are highly subjective and may be based on an imperfect understanding of the matter. They may change over time as my understanding improves.
    • There has been a fair amount of discussion about what makes a LL, and I don't think it came to any conclusion. But here's some interesting points of view.

      LL1 Call for Participation [mit.edu]
      Anton van Straaten [mit.edu]

      I think there is a lot more agreement about what isn't lightweight.

      If a language is statically typed and doesn't have type inferencing, it's probably not lightweight. If a language does not have a freely available implementation, it's probably not lightweight. Any language that requires you to type this

  • before you waste bandwidth (Score:5, Informative)

    by t482 ( 193197 ) on Friday December 03, 2004 @12:56PM (#10987653) Homepage
    The program is available here [mit.edu] and the abstracts are available here [mit.edu]
    • The sound is apalling for me on dialup. I think the server is throttling back its bitrate accordingly so I can't even get a decent stream via mplayer -dumpstream

      Does anybody have the streams mirrored in a reasonable quality?

  • Since when was Perl considered 'lightweight'? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Perl5 is big enough and Perl6 promises to have an even larger memory footprint.

  • If Perl is a lightweight language, what the hell is a heavyweight language? Assembly? Isn't this the same type of distinction as high-level/low-level?

    • Even forget about the "Perl is lightweight" stuff (although I totally agree with you!) They also describe **English** as a lightweight language.

      The English language has one of the largest vocabilaries in the world. It grows by something like 10,000 entries a year. In order to use it in any real-world setting you have to learn thousands of colloquialisms and slang terms. People who learn it as a second language are still learning new words and phrases 10 years later. It is nowhere near "lightweight".

      I thin

      • Re:Article is total nonsense (Score:1, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward
        I think the people discussed in this article live in some kind of upside-down universe where black is white and white is black.

        Strange enough, the Michael Jackson in that universe is exactly as ours.

      • Read the first abstract here [mit.edu].

        They mean English as a programming language, which would, indeed, be the easiest to learn of them all, provided the person attempting to learn it were already a fluent speaker/reader/writer of the natural language English.

        I agree about Perl, however. Perl can be more cryptic than Enigma [wikipedia.org]! Hardly "easy to learn".

  • Arc? (Score:1)

    by Wolfkin ( 17910 )
    No Arc?! Paul Graham; paging Paul Graham!

    Where's my dinner^WArc?! ;)

    • Re:Arc? (Score:2)

      by Zaak ( 46001 )
      No Arc?! Paul Graham; paging Paul Graham!

      As much as I enjoy reading his essays, I would like to see him write less English and more code.

      Or at least a status update now and then.

      But I suppose you have different priorities when you're designing something to last rather than something to be useful right now.

      TTFN

    • I'm super bummed that Arc seems to MIA. Paul Graham seems to be taking a perfectionist/cathedral development approach.. :(

    • Arc: (Score:1)

      by Szplug ( 8771 )
      Paul Graham has some beta testers so the language is /somewhere/. The thing I fear is, that he'll get so far and realize Arc is translatable to Lisp or Scheme and quit. Or else, that some of the things he wants are really hard and get sidetracked.
  • has anyone got any studies into a virtual machine that would best suit these kind of interpreters/compilers ?

    I know parrot but any studies on that even ?

    regards

    John Jones
  • ...But I'm sure they'll give equal coverage even to products that are going to be in competition with Microsoft.
    -- END SARCASM --

    Seriously, who would take seriously a seminar on light programming langauges from the company that has helped to make C++ the de facto application programming language for 10 years? The only light language that I've seen Microsoft push is VBScript. And I think we all know where they can shove VBScript.
    • The only light language that I've seen Microsoft push is VBScript.

      This is Microsoft Research, which is different from Microsoft, proper. For instance, MR sponsors Simon Peyton Jones [microsoft.com], who spends an enormous amount of effort on Haskell.

      If you look at proceedings from years past, you will see that this isn't the MS fan club meeting.
    • I attended last year's LL3 and the words "Visual" and "Basic" were never uttered together. On the other hand there was a whole lot of talk about "Scheme", "Haskell", "continuation passing style", and "macros" (the hygienic kind).

  • Ruby (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Pacifix ( 465793 )
    Ruby is really picking up speed here in the US and I'm surprised to see that's not included. It even has a movement and language leader, Matz. I'm not sure how fluent he is in English. For me, Ruby certainly was easy to learn and would seem to be a perfect candidate for inclusion in a light weight language discussion. Odd...
    • Matz was present as a keynote speaker last year, or two years ago.

    • Ruby is interesting, but at least for me its lack of Unicode support is enough to keep it out of contention with Python.

      • Re:Ruby (Score:2)

        by GCP ( 122438 )
        I totally agree. Matz has made no secret of the fact that his language design philosophy is to optimize for HIS personal needs, with other users taking advantage of it to the extent that their needs overlap his. He has made it clear that he is MUCH more interested in legacy Japanese encodings like EUC-JP than with the global encodings everyone is moving toward (Unicode).

        His work apparently focuses on dealing with legacy Japanese systems and data, while mine involves designing NEW systems that will work glo
  • From my limited experience, Fortan is about the best choice you can do for anything between "lightweight" tasks and more advanced tasks, as long as you skip a GUI requirement (even if you could, consider a Python GUI and remain calm).

    For more complex matters, Ocaml [ocakml.org] might be a better choice, as compared to C/C++. Check out a Linux Ocaml shootout here [debian.org] and a Windows Ocaml shootout here [dada.perl.it]. Neither of them were meant to be Ocaml benefactori per se, but it is hard to avoid being impressed (so, I'm a sucker for

  • T3X (Score:1)

    by zipoh ( 643469 )
    described as a "Minimum procedural language" doesn't get much attention http://www.holm-und-jeschag.de/nils/comp.html

  • Lua? Anyone? Anyone? (Score:3, Informative)

    by cookd ( 72933 ) <douglascook&juno,com> on Friday December 03, 2004 @06:55PM (#10992465) Journal
    Strangely, one of the best (IMHO) "lightweight" languages isn't even mentioned (as far as I can tell, anyway). Lua is really lightweight (easy to learn, and very easy on resource usage) yet very powerful. I wonder why it doesn't get more attention...
  • Why in God's name would anyone use RealMedia to broadcast over the intarweb? They're MIT for fuck's sake, can't they use anything better.

    T_T

    Does anyone know if there are any conversions to quicktime or ogg or mp3 or something?

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