Ioke Tries To Combine the Best of Lisp and Ruby 255
synodinos writes "Ola Bini, a core JRuby developer and author of the book Practical JRuby on Rails Projects, has been developing a new language for the JVM called Ioke. This strongly typed, extremely dynamic, prototype-based, object-oriented language aims to give developers the same kind of power they get with Lisp and Ruby, combined with a nice, small, regular syntax."
Try Io (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.iolanguage.com/ [iolanguage.com]
Io is a small, prototype-based programming language. The ideas in Io are mostly inspired by Smalltalk (all values are objects, all messages are dynamic), Self (prototype-based), NewtonScript (differential inheritance), Act1 (actors and futures for concurrency), LISP (code is a runtime inspectable/modifiable tree) and Lua (small, embeddable).
Re:Try Io (Score:5, Insightful)
New languages are announced every week or so in different places... it doesn't change the fact that the language that most big projects rely on now is one of the old guard. C [wikipedia.org] is, despite it's incarnations (or deformations, depending on who you believe) still king, and it was designed in 1972.
Re:Try Io (Score:5, Insightful)
The idea of these new languages (Python, Java, Ruby, and presumably ioke) is to abstract very common functions to increase the speed of development.
Every layer of abstraction increases the "power" of the language from a development point of view, allowing developers to do far more than they could with a single line of code, trading off flexibility, and performance.
The idea of a new language is to deliver as much "quick access" functionality as possible (saving the developer having to implement their own low level functionality such as string classes, array handling and perhaps memory management) while compromising as little as possible on flexibility and performance.
If ioke delivers a best-yet mix of these trade offs, then it stands a chance to become the Next Big Thing. Personally, I think that Python is the state of the art when it comes to highly functional development languages that still deliver good performance and flexibility. It's not quite fast enough to write an operating system in (although there was an effort called Unununium which tried but never took off), however it is vastly superior, both in overall design and performance, to other languages that provide a similar level of abstraction such as PHP.
Re:Try Io (Score:5, Insightful)
[Python]'s not quite fast enough to write an operating system in (although there was an effort called Unununium which tried but never took off)
Unununium's kernel was, I believe, written in C. The user interface, userspace applications and drivers would have all been written in Python.
Unununium didn't take off because its developers had no clue about OS design. They apparently spent most of their time boasting about how their operating system didn't have a kernel (it did; its kernel was a slightly modified Python interpreter[1]) and how it was such an innovative design (when all it did was replicate some of the achievements of traditional language-based systems that were popular in the academic research community in the 70s and early 80s, cf. Smalltalk-80, which although now generally considered just as a language was originally considered by its developers and users as an operating system, or the earlier CMU Hydra system which was built around similar principles), and not enough time actually writing the damned thing.
[1]: The issue seems to be one of understanding what a kernel is. The unununium developers seemed to believe the defining factor of a kernel is that it provides inter-process protection by allocating different memory spaces to the different processes. Under this view, many modern OSs don't have kernels, including Singularity and JX. Also, some older ones, including 16-bit Windows and Amiga.
Logic compression (Score:3, Interesting)
You can express any program with an infinite list of "IF THEN"s, but that's not very useful (and way too much typing).
So that's where programming languages come in. Not all compression algorithms are great for all sorts of data and situations, similarly not all programming languages are good at all things. Of course there are some compression algorithms which are just plain crap
A language that's p
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While a lot of CS academics like languages that are powerful for the code you have to write (which is a good reason), do not be surprised when programmers in the real world pick languages that are powerful for the code they don't have to write (aka modules/libraries).
I bet that's aimed at the comp.lang.lisp crowd :-) "Nah, there's no library for X, but why does it matter when it only takes a few hundred lines to implement X in Lisp?"
Besides the availability and quality of libraries, a language's culture and institutions are critical. CPAN is a boon. Javadoc is my favorite thing about Java and the one feature/practice I wish was present in all the other languages I use. Modern package management systems (apt-get et al.) have modernized and streamlined the experience
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Amen.
I really really wanted to do CL for the rest of my days as a programmer-turned-engineer (and now have the freedom to code applications just how I like them) but dangit if the libraries just SUCK. How to send email to a SMTP server that requires TLS? How to do threads? How to do a basic GUI? Serve a web page? How to package it up?
And by golly how to write multi-platform code (e.g. Windows/Mac/Unix)? It doesn't help for c.l.l to say "just use the functions in CLTL/HyperSpec" when you need to do HTT
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Right on - I think the importance of Javadoc being an official part of the language as opposed to some add on is often underestimated when people wonder why Java caught on so well, and the fact that most IDEs integrate Javadocs so seamlessly is extremely helpful. I've still never seen another language that has such a practical and actually used documentation system.
When your IDE is s
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If ioke delivers a best-yet mix of these trade offs, then it stands a chance to become the Next Big Thing.
I'm glad you said a best mix, not the best mix, because the best trade offs depends on what you're actually doing, which is why the good programmer will have at least a couple of languages under their belt.
(eq high-level-language scripting language)=false (Score:2, Interesting)
It's funny you mention that Python isn't QUITE fast enough to write an operating system in. I'd say it's dead-slow to write an operating in. Some guys at OLPC thought it was a good idea to write a window-manager in Python. And that is already dead-slow. Python as of now is still an interpreted scripting language. And I wouldn't exactly set the bar as low as to take PHP as a classic example of a fast, well designed lang
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Every layer of abstraction increases the "power" of the language from a development point of view, allowing developers to do far more than they could with a single line of code, trading off flexibility, and performance.
That's mostly true, but not necessarily so. For example, take Python. One of the nice things it does is making dictionaries (ie, hash maps) piss easy to use. Now, it is true that that can lead to abuse, and make you use dictionaries for everything (and, in fact, much of python is implemented atop its own dictionary system). However, when you do want to write code that uses hash maps extensively, you're unlikely to find a faster implementation of hash maps anywhere.
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it doesn't change the fact that the language that most big projects rely on now is one of the old guard. C is, despite it's incarnations (or deformations, depending on who you believe) still king, and it was designed in 1972.
That's why I like D. It's basically C with modern concepts built (elegantly) into the core language. No need to get all crazy with things like Ruby, etc. Plus it's compiled. :)
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Second, what you're running on should never relate to language choices unless you're running on an embedded platform. Java code is compiled to the CPU just like everything else, it's just done at runtime.
You miss the point: people use C b
No surprise (Score:5, Informative)
That's because C deals with how computers actually think. All this new stuff with languages is wonderful, and often has some uses in various cases, however none of it relates to how a computer actually works. C is a good "mid level" language. By that I mean it does a good job of structuring programs in terms of how they actually work on a processor, while still being fairly easy for a human to work with.
A lot of people get caught up in their "flavour of the month" language and forget that none of this relates to how computers actually work. For example yes, pointers are confusing and you can get in to trouble with them. However, that is actually how a processor handles things. It has registers that are pointers to memory locations of things it needs (like a pointer to the instruction to execute). So while more restrictive, managed references might be nice, they've nothing at all to do with how the processor works. That means you have to implement additional code overhead to deal with that sort of thing, and that you are losing the ability to optimise in certain ways.
Basically C is likely to remain strong until we just have more CPU power and memory than we know what to do with on all platforms (embedded included). Until then there is the need to generate optimised programs. To do that, you need to be able to write a program based on how the computer thinks, not on how you do.
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Basically C is likely to remain strong until we just have more CPU power and memory than we know what to do with on all platforms (embedded included). Until then there is the need to generate optimised programs. To do that, you need to be able to write a program based on how the computer thinks, not on how you do.
In other words, C or a variant will remain strong forever.
We will always need optimized programs because, like my desk, available space always fills with something, and the more somethings we can cram into that space, the happier we are...
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In my impression, C is how a single-processor computer thinks. The way we're currently getting more CPU power is via multiple processors and SIMD.
My pet peeve is the idea of autovectorizing compilers; they are necessary because people are using a sequential language to solve parallel problems. When you write up a matrix multiplication in C, you are throwing away essential information about the calculation. A parallelizing compiler will try to recover this information by guesswork. It's a silly state of t
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c++ is better though, and i sincerely hope that the world is moving towards c++ based interfaces ( some opsyses already do, like Symbian and a few RTOSes ive come across )
Even for really lowlevel stuff, like 8-bit MCU programming i prefer c++ over C these days ( exceptions off, rtti off ) due do simple constructs like wrapping resource locks etc. and templates save the day more often than C practice of preprocessor macros.
In short, i favour simpler, cleaner code.
Re:No surprise (Score:4, Insightful)
C is likely to remain strong until we just have more CPU power than [...]
We already do (have more than C can handle[1]): dual and quad core processors.
There is as of now no really good parallel (or multi-threaded) language. Java and Erlang are perhaps the best, which essentially says where we stand right now.
Please do not talk about Posix thread libraries, they do tell enough about the memory model. Java was the first language to define one, but it is not 100% clear. C++ is just about to define one for itself[2].
Therefore for example D is not the next language.
[1] Not that you said or even implied that.
[2] http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Hans_Boehm/c++mm/ [hp.com]
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Well, as someone who is currently writing C firmware code, I'd have to disagree. Most big projects (in terms of lines of code) these days are Java, I'd say. C is good for embedded stuff like what I'm getting paid for, and for low-level systems stuff like your operating system kernel, but when it comes to enterprise apps, desktop apps, etc., who is using C?
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But the thing is, I can't get paid to use Haskell or Lisp at my job or at any other publicly listed software development job within a hundred miles of my house.
I've been trying to come up with a business model that lets me write my own software in a functional language and keep my kids in school and my mortgage paid. But I haven't found anything yet. So for the moment, I'm stuck with Java to pay the bills.
I realize Design Patterns are hype to overcome language limits. But since I'm not
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Hey! it basically it is Io for the JVM! What's not to like? (Except the JVM).
Io feels so right, I always have suggested Io instead of Javascript for browser scripting.
Re:Try Io (Score:5, Funny)
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"Best"? (Score:3, Funny)
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Oh, please. There's a macro for this:
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Oh, please. There's a macro for this:
Surely
(p_best_part_exists 'lisp)
Re:"Best"? (Score:4, Informative)
underscores? in lisp? are you mad!!?
(best-part-exists-p lisp)
i.e., hyphens as separators, p for predicate rather than the schemish question mark of you parent, and no need to quote lisp which is clearly being treated as a variable pointing to a language entity here, not a raw symbol in need of quotation.
Re:"Best"? (Score:5, Interesting)
The parentheses just disappear after you've coded Lisp for a while. Also, try paredit.el [mumble.net] for Emacs. With that turned on, you don't edit text, but sexps. It's wonderful, once you get used to it.
As for Lisp itself, well, 20 years ago did for the first time many of the things that mainstream languages today are just beginning to obtain, like closures, arbitrary lexical scoping, highly dynamic data structures, and (in Scheme's case) call/cc. One thing gcc just implemented is per-function compiler optimization settings. Common Lisp has had a facility for that since the beginning of time.
One thing that still isn't matched by other languages, however, is Lisp's macro system. It's far more powerful than C macros. You can define new control structures, implement sub-languages, and construct any higher-language construct you want. And these features you build all look just like native language constructs.
And don't even get me started o CLOS, which is one of the very few object-oriented systems to provide a clean multimethod [wikipedia.org] dispatch solution.
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Have you had your eyes checked recently? ;)
If you cannot see *that* many brackets then something is horribly wrong.
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Re:"Best"? (Score:4, Interesting)
Dylan had a very powerful macro system.
http://www.opendylan.org/ [opendylan.org]
with all the advantages of a late-bound language.
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Per-function optimization (Score:2)
It seems to me that per-function optimization settings would be useful in very few real-world cases.
Re:Per-function optimization (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, people often don't see the point of things they've never tried, or of features that are missing from their current favourite language.
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Please.
Market performance has fuck all to do with the success of superior technology. Case in point: the Amiga.
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Then, if market performance and superior technology have nothing to do with each other, why should anyone invest their money in research? Or are you saying that all technology is performance art, and we may as well paint our bodies paisley and recite poetry from lightposts, because it's just as useful?
Let's look at it again: if Lisp were that superior in solving big problems, it would have solved some of them. As it is, Lisp faces real problems in garbage collection and system resource management, or at lea
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This is pure sophistry.
So you don't dig Lisp: fine. However, trying to defend the idea that economic success implies technological superiority is wholely without merit.
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However, trying to defend the idea that economic success implies technological superiority is wholely without merit.
Because that would imply that your favourite language is a failure, and you find that conclusion unacceptable?
Lisp is a power tool for a Very Smart Person. Like all such tools, they're difficult to master. The truly successful stuff tends to be usable in an effective manner by people who aren't VSPs. (For example, making it easier to see where the costs of resource management are biting makes it easier for programmers to get good performance. Well, for a large enough fraction of programmers for most SW comp
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Hardly.
My personal tastes don't enter into it. I've slung enough (read hundreds of KLOCs) C or C++ to recognize the fact that its commercial success is more of an historical accident than a testament to its characteristics. Also, I'm something of a dilettante when it comes to Lisp; however, that hasn't kept me from appreciating its merits.
Lisp is a power tool for a Very Smart Person. Like a
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I think it actually did. :-)
When? Where? Any Lisp app I have ever seen has performed much more system-resource-friendly than, e.g., Java apps. And Java is considered a "real" and "businesslike" programming language these days, whatever it means.
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As it is, Lisp faces real problems in garbage collection and system resource management, or at least it has traditionally faced such problems.
You are confusing reputation with reality.
LISP was the first language that required garbage collection, and that radical idea was fought tooth-and-nail by the rest of academia and industry. But the garbage collection technology developed was fast and reliable (I knew many of the people intimately involved in making the GC for Scheme at MIT). There was certainly an o
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Then, if market performance and superior technology have nothing to do with each other, why should anyone invest their money in research?
Sales and marketing.
In a technology market if you don't do research to revise old products and create new ones, your sales and marketing people have nothing to sell and your technology will die. Technological superiority has little to do with this.
Re:"Best"? (Score:4, Insightful)
Lisp did fairly well in the areas where the problems it solved particularly well were common; C and friends did well where the things it dealt with well were the main challenges. when C was conquering the world, the latter were more common than the former. Increasingly, the problems Lisp deals with well have become relevant to more software, but C-based languages are pretty entrenched (both in systems and in programmer's minds), so instead of Lisp seeing a resurgence, you see C-like languages with more and more Lisp-like features bolted on. (The same is true with "Smalltalk" in place of "Lisp", too.)
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Also, it's :-)
(best-part-p 'lisp)
you insensitive clod.
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(There's (a best) (part (of LISP)))?!?
There is, and you just quoted it. The best part of LISP is that there's no bloody syntax; everything is clean, regular and simple. Of course this isn't true of Common LISP, but Common LISP isn't really LISP at all.
I have to admit I took a look at Io [iolanguage.com] this morning, and thought, 'oh, no, not another language with bloody stupid syntax.'
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The main good part about lisp is that data and code are represented in the same way. Any transform you can do on data, you can do on code. This makes metaprogramming incredibly easy - something like 90% of the GoF patterns can be implemented as Lisp macros, for example.
Io has some syntax, but not much more than Smalltalk, which has assignment, message passing, and literals. After using Objective-C and Smalltalk for a while, I'd hate to switch back to a language which doesn't have infix parameter names (
Your Father's Parantheses (Score:2)
Lisp Cycles [xkcd.com]
Still one of my all-time favourites.
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(There's (a best) (part (of LISP)))?!?
(defmacro with-decent-lisp [& forms]
`(with-clojure ~@forms))
Outlook negative (Score:5, Insightful)
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However, he wears a hat AND has an "unhealthy" interest in programming languages. So maybe it will succeed after all.
Re:Outlook negative (Score:5, Funny)
No, no, you've got it backwards. Designing a successful language gives you a beard.
Poor Grace Hopper...
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Hmm, so he's got the weird looks, unusual name and anagrams working for him, but the lack of beard is a serious handicap for a language developer. I guess the future of this language is still up in the air
Yet another wannabe Lisp minus macros (Score:2, Insightful)
the same kind of power they get with Lisp and Ruby, combined with a nice, small, regular syntax
In other words, this is just a reinvented Ruby targeted to the JVM. Without macros, what's the point? Why not just stick with Common Lisp and get all the power of Lisp, not just some of it, and still have a "small, regular syntax"? You can even use ABCL [common-lisp.net] if you want to target the JVM.
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*sigh*
It would help if you actually read the rest of the article:
Prototype-based? I'll pass. (Score:3, Insightful)
I haven't used Self, but going by my experience with Javascript, prototype-based languages suck compared to conventional class/metaclass based ones. The problem is that parents of types must be *instances* of their parent types, and there isn't always a suitable kind of instance to use as a prototype. Either you end up coding around the prototype system and emulating conventional constructors, or you end up specifying special uninitialized states for base classes.
Prototype languages make it easy to use the GoF prototype design pattern, true, but I find myself thinking "hrm, I need a new type" far more often than "Hrm, I need a prototype system for object initialization."
Also, Python and CLOS style metaclasses give you all the flexibility of a prototype system.
I'm all ears for any advantages the latter might have.
Re:Prototype-based? I'll pass. (Score:5, Interesting)
I haven't used Self, but going by my experience with Javascript, prototype-based languages suck compared to conventional class/metaclass based ones.
Generally true. Javascript was never intended for writing large programs. The object system is basically a hack on top of dictionaries. That's easy to implement, but doesn't scale well.
This is one of the classic things one can do wrong in language design, and which tend to have to be fixed in later versions, painfully. Some other classic boners are leaving out a "bool" type (C and Python), not providing generics in a statically typed object-oriented language (C++ and Java), and not designing in separate compilation (ISO Pascal).
Ioke is cute, but there's just no really good reason for such a strange syntax, and it's going to turn too many people off. Using whitespace as an operator (really!) is probably a bad idea. The ability to change the operator precedence dynamically may be "fun", but does not lead to readable or maintainable code. Experience with "read macros" in LISP indicates that rewriting code during input isn't good for readability either. On top of all this, Ioke allows regular expressions in code, like Perl. (It's not clear from the description if you can use regular expressions in the read macros to rewrite the regular expressions in the code. I think you can.) So Ioke brings together the least readable features from four different languages.
People who come up with "l33t" ideas like this need to be put on maintenance programming of code written by others for six months or so.
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> Some other classic boners are leaving out a "bool" type (C and Python)...
I've never understood why this bothers people.
For the two languages you give:
C: In C, everything is a number. This is because everything is a number at the level of the processor, and C is all 'low-level' like that. If the processor is only going to check whether something is zero or not, why enforce that a given number is _precisely_ one or zero? There is some confusion by people who don't understand this who will type (x==TR
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If the processor is only going to check whether something is zero or not, why enforce that a given number is _precisely_ one or zero?
Because it expresses much more precisely what you intend to do. Having a "bool is_visible()" in a GUI toolkit makes sense, having a "int is_visible()" not so much, which is why everybody ends up doing macro hacks of BOOL, gboolean and whatever. Lack of basic features in a language just leads to lots of hacking around to get those features into the language down the line, its simply annoying.
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There's your problem. Visibility isn't a bool, it is at least an int, or maybe a float. Think, man! The object may have only partial concealment.
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This is a good idea; it makes the regular expressions themselves much easier to read, with less escaping than is required in languages that insist on putting them in strings. Regular expressions are already complicated enough without requiring you to write crazy stuff like "\\\\\\*" just to match a backslash followed by an asterisk.
It also makes it feasible for syntax-highlighting editors to treat all regular expressions specially, whic
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This is one of the classic things one can do wrong in language design, and which tend to have to be fixed in later versions, painfully. Some other classic boners are leaving out a "bool" type (C and Python), not providing generics in a statically typed object-oriented language (C++ and Java), and not designing in separate compilation (ISO Pascal).
C++ most definitely has generics (templates!). Feel free to hate the syntax, but they are there.
As for the other poster who #defines TRUE as !FALSE, that of course does not work - or at least, not as he seems to intend it:
const int a = 3;
if (a == TRUE) ...
This will still fail, because it expands to
if (a == !FALSE) ...
which itself expands to
if (a == 1) ...
which gives a result that I would rate as incorrect. And if by some miracle the author did intend for this to be correct, he is really overdue for a good b
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Ioke is cute, but there's just no really good reason for such a strange syntax
I'm not sure Ioke is the language for me, but I think it is interesting that he is experimenting with syntax and trying out new things. He has blogged [olabini.com] about his reasons for using space as the method operator, and the consequences.
People who come up with "l33t" ideas like this need to be put on maintenance programming of code written by others for six months or so.
I've worked with Ola. Trust me, he's done plenty of maintenance prog
I keep wanting to say "Loki", (Score:2)
the Norse trickster god. Seems like a better name for a language.
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Whitespace as an operator .... you mean like Python ....? (It's the one thing I hate about Python)
C++ has no generics???? (Score:2)
Ever heard of templates?
Lisp Syntax (Score:5, Insightful)
People think that s-expressions are a poor syntax. These people are wrong.
Seriously, if you give yourself the change to wrap your head around it, s-expressions are both elegant and powerful. Representing your code as a data structure is what makes lisp lisp. Take that away, and you might as well just use ML.
Re:Lisp Syntax (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously, if you give yourself the change to wrap your head around it, s-expressions are both elegant and powerful.
Elegant and powerful? Sure. But Readable? No way.
I like S-Expressions as XML replacement a lot, since for representing simple structured data its quite nice. But it just doesn't lead to very readable code when it comes to programming, even after some years toying around with Scheme, I still find "a = 5 + b" a hell of a lot more readable then "(set! a (+ 5 b))". The first paints a visual picture with clear symbols, the other is just token soup, it might be easy to parse for a computer, but very definitvly not for a human. Array access and a lot of other basic stuff is just a total mess in s-expressions.
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(setf val (* (- (cos (sqrt 3))
(+ 2 h))
(floor m 1
Oh boy! (Score:5, Insightful)
Another pocket language with idiosyncratic design choices that seem just right to the understimulated nerd looking for fame.
Re:Oh boy! (Score:4, Insightful)
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He's announcing it way too early. He has practically nothing to show. There's only one tiny code example that I can see to gauge its merits.
When he announced it on his blog a couple of months ago it he said it was in progress. He is still experimenting with the syntax and semantics of the language, so I think it is currently mostly interesting for those who want to discuss ideas and experiment themselves.
Clojure (Score:5, Informative)
All the goodies of lisp, the JVM, and functional programming without all the bad outdated stuff. It's a very cool language.
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In my opinion, those are the three projects that one has to look into for cool (if you're a PL geek) stuff that is nonetheless bordering on mainstream: Clojure, Scala, and F#. Last two in particular, as Scala seems to be the "future of Java" to many advanced Java programmers who got tired of language limitations, and F# is being made a first-class supported language for the next .NET and Visual Studio release.
Meanwhile, yet another my-own-programming-language-of-the-day is getting old. There are announce
Re:Clojure (Score:4, Interesting)
I can't recommend enough the screencasts by Rich Hickey [clojure.blip.tv], the language designer and main implementer.
The 5th screencast, Clojure Concurrency [blip.tv], is most recommended by me for programming language aficionados. It's a long overview of the language and its philosophy regarding concurrency programming. After I saw that one, I was very excited about Clojure in a way that none of the latest languages made me feel.
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I think the buzz is not so much about lifting limitations as it is about those two moving into mainstream application development alongside the likes of Java and C#. It is that upcoming ability to use those nice language features in large real-world production projects that's so exciting (for me at least). Playing with Haskell is one thing, but this is qu
Thanks (Score:2)
Looks interesting. I've been wanting a functional language with a read-execute loop which I can put on my PocketPC for a while, but not finding anything. I'll have to play around and see what I can do with Clojure.
Lost in a sea of (Score:3, Funny)
Oh great, you combine the white-space-tab problem with the Lost in a Sea of Parentheses problem to get lost in a sea of white space ;-P
So... (Score:5, Insightful)
the same kind of power they get with Lisp and Ruby, combined with a nice, small, regular syntax
So, it's Lisp then?
Seriously... in terms of small regular syntaxes you don't get smaller and more regular than Lisp:
(source [unige.ch]).
Next smallest and most regular syntax for a useful language is probably smalltalk, but that's too long to post here. It's worth noting that smalltalk (particularly its first-class statement blocks) was a heavy influence on ruby. Smalltalk also gets close to hitting the 'nice' requirement, which IMO Lisp is a long way from.
Re:So... (Score:4, Insightful)
Unfortunately that nice small regular syntax is only for the Lisp core. The actual language that you need to program in has all kinds of other syntactic features, starting with 'symbols and `(macro ,@quoting) and going rapidly downhill from there.
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People who do not know Lisp are doomed to reimplement it - badly
Joke? (Score:5, Funny)
My eye sight must be getting bad... I misread this as:
Joke Tries to Combine the Best of Lisp and Ruby
From the RA: (Score:2)
"Since it's quite terse and provide powerful features for succinctness, it should be very maintainable."
Yeah, sure. We all know how maintainable APL and Forth are. Wikipedia identifies as a feature of write-only code "syntax which permits (or encourages) the writing of very dense code." I can't help thinking that "Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it".
This already exists (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
You mean, "Right, it's a joke." In some browsers, the bottom of the j is cut off. I invented a new language too, named asdlkj. It is whitespace [wikipedia.org] combined with brainf*ck [wikipedia.org] that sits atop the microsoft JVM that compiles down to executable php.
Here is some sample code (tabs in [tab]):
+ + + + +[tab]<[. -]-.[tab] [tab]>-- [tab]<.+.
I'm still trying to understand what it's supposed to do.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)
I think it should be pronounced "joke", which seems to fit...
Re:Awesome another langauge (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Not one single soul in the world who was ever going to make a language, is now not going to, because of that rant.
I don't know. I was going to invent a language this morning, but after reading this I'm having second thoughts.
What should I do?
Re: (Score:2)
I say we stop all development entirely!
Its likely in this cause being that its built on the JVM, that people should probably just use java anyway.
I'm not a Java expert, but... Java does everything that Ruby and LISP does without having to jump through hoops?
Re: (Score:2)
Let's see... I'm hooked up to the electrical grid and I have some chemical batteries lying around. That makes two. I also have a USB charging cable for my NDS, which is different from directly plugging the DS into the wall. So I have three different kinds of power source I can readily remember, the self-sustaining solar calculator not counting. And no, I wouldn't want to standardize on any one of them as they all
Lots of bad languages to choose from (Score:2)
The good programmers already have PLENTY of GOOD languages to choose from
Unfortunately, they also have plenty of bad languages to choose from, and they tend to choose the ones that suck the most.
Perl. C++. Java.
Good languages like Lisp and Smalltalk get no respect. Attempts to graft C/Pascal syntax on Lisp and Smalltalk get no respect.
I like to see new languages tried. Maybe one that doesn't actually suck will catch on.
Re: (Score:2)