On 04/01/2014, at 6:02 PM, srean wrote:
>
> Dynamics
> ========
>
> I think Srean is a bit offended when I say Felix was always intended to be
> dynamic. But I want to do an analogy first.
>
> Huh! when was that ! I think of dynamic to be special case of static, and in
> general I am not terribly impressed by dynamic language anyway. Useful for
> small throw away stuff, it surely works great for some, but me I make way too
> many type errors for my own good.
Please read CAREFULLY!
It says "Dynamics". It doesn't say "Dynamically Typed".
Most languages are dynamic .. that's what conditional control
flow is all about.
Now note subsequent topic, dynamic *meta typing*.
And roadmap: static typing -- dynamic control and loading -- dynamic
meta-typing -- we already
have dynamic typing as pointed out. As does Haskell, Ocaml, and any other
language with
union (sum) types. After all a match is precisely a jump based on run time type
information.
>
> I know you like your definition of a scripting language, but for whatever it
> is worth I think the accepted/conventional/mainstream/popular definition of a
> scripting language is Mike's definition. You risk being taken for a
> curmudgeon :) if you call C++ a scripting language and that might reflect
> poorly on Felix.
That was tongue-in-cheek :)
>
> According to your definition the union of any compiled language with a
> Makefile (or some other build system) constitutes a scripting language.
>
> Much that you may disagree, definitions, proofs, lemmas etc are actually all
> inherently social devices. Having personal variants of the same defeats their
> purpose.
You miss the point. My definition is a reasonable abstraction of what everyone
else thinks.
The fact that Felix is slow to compile at the moment is a quantitative objection
to classing it as a scripting language, and one I'm working to overcome.
It isn't a qualitative objection.
I can prove this easily with a simple example.
Ocaml. It's a statically typed compiled language right?
Er no. It's a scripting language. I recommend you try
ocaml
or better
ledit ocaml
since there's no line editing otherwise. In any case that's
a "run immediately REPL bytecode interpreter" exactly like
Python, or Ruby, or Scheme.
Felix is actually a better scripting language than Ocaml, for the simple
reason it has much better string handling. A scripting language is not
only itself "script" but it's main data type is also "script", that is, strings.
Of course, Felix is not "there" yet in many senses, especially performance,
but I'm working on it. Remember .. to be a scripting language is a goal,
doesn't mean its actually achieved that goal (if It had I'd stop working on it
and just go sailing).
One famous characterisation: the existence of eval.
Felix doesn't have eval .. YET. But it will, very soon.
On a higher level than Python or Perl perhaps but still eval.
In particular .. you will be able to load a Felix text file as a plugin.
After all you can do that right now in two steps: (1) compile it
then (2) load it, and BOTH these steps are roughly one liners.
In fact you'll be able to do the equivalent with C++ as well.
After all, that's easier than compiling Felix since Felix already
compiles to C++ anyhow.
Anyhow that's my approach and opinion but I really dont
care what you call it. I'm loathe to compete with compiled
languages like Haskell or Ocaml. As compiled languages
they're just better.
--
john skaller
skal...@users.sourceforge.net
http://felix-lang.org
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