On Sat, Jun 9, 2012 at 7:51 AM, Srujan Kotikela <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi, > > I recently came across Deca. Sounds like an interesting programming > language. It's comparison to BitC comes from the fact that it tries to solve > the same problems as BitC: > > Systems programs operate in constrained memory. > Systems programs are strongly driven by bulk I/O performance. > Performance and data representation matter. > Stateful programming is mandatory. > User-managed storage is a requirement. > > However, it doesn't try to support the formal verification part. I was > wondering to know how BitC developers see Deca as in comparison to BitC. > What's the good/bad/ugly in Deca with respect to BitC goals. > > ~ SDK >
Writing a language is easy. Putting forth a set of goals that everyone wants is also easy. The hard part is making the necessary comprises in the implementation when it comes down to those goals being fundamentally incompatible. Insofar as that, Deca is a project, sure, but no more than any other model programming language implementation. You have to understand that BitC was an idea that was elaborated upon throughout years of development by a few people who were really working to make it great. Deca, by comparison, is an undergraduate thesis. These are vastly different things :-). While many of the problems faced in Decas development were also faced in the development of BitC, the devil is most certainly in the details. So basically, making a language is a lot more than writing down a type system, writing up a compiler, sticking a GC on top, and marketing it. For a system to really succeed there are a lot more practical things to think about, and there is no evidence that this has been done in Deca (or should be, making a good language is hard, takes lot of smart people, translating into lots of money). As a counterpoint to your example, (although this isn't strictly correct), Rust has also been cited as an example of a language solving some of the problems that were seen in BitC's development.. kris _______________________________________________ bitc-dev mailing list [email protected] http://www.coyotos.org/mailman/listinfo/bitc-dev
