2011/3/29 Bryan Edds <bryane...@yahoo.com>: > Hi Jake! > >> My only question is this: what does your language offer that others do >> not with respect to soft real time systems? The language you describe in >> the linked forum thread looks neat, but I think I'm missing the >> reasoning behind its design. Why is this design beneficial for soft real >> time compared to other high level languages? > > The main thrust of the design is to provide nearly the power of Lisp and ML's > semantics in a form that is syntactically palatable to the mass of intelligent > industry programmers. While industry programmers typically prefer C-style > languages, it's just not possible to build a C-style language with a > reasonable > macro development (language orientation) experience due to C's inherent > syntactic complexities. Further, it seems to have been historically > demonstrated > that C-family programmers are not willing to make the a syntactic leap as far > as > say, Lisp or Ocaml. > > Barring the provision of yet another C-style language, there's another set of > languages many C-family programmers do rather like: Ruby and Python. So by > finding a direct mapping from s-expressions to a language with an feel and > visual appeal similar to Python that ALSO approaches the machine efficiency of > C++, I hope to create a lisp- and ML-derived language that is accessible to an > audience wider than existing functional languages seem to have reached. > > As you can see, the design does admit some semantic compromises in the name of > syntax and efficiency, but the compromise is surprisingly (at least to me) > minimal. One compromise made in the name of C++ efficiency is the use of a > machine word-sized default number type rather than the default number type > used > in lisp or Haskell. Of course, arbitrary number types can be made available > naturally via a library using simple binary operation overrides, but they are > not the default when you type the literal 5. > > I've discovered, at least to my own current satisfaction, that bringing lisp- > and ML-style semantics to the masses is possible with less semantic > compromises > than previously seemed possible. By providing a language that industry > programmers feel comfortable with, I hope to move as many of them as possible > into the functional / language-oriented world. > > But more than that, I'm just designing the language I wish I could use > everyday > instead of C++ and C# :)
Hi, First of all, I wish you good luck in your project. Your mail made me think of my little syntactical[0] library. It needs some love but is in principle very flexible. It makes a clear mapping between distfix expressions and s-expressions. Distfix expressions are flexible enough to accomodate for a lot of the usual constructs one can find in programming languages. Maybe you'll find it useful. Cheers, Thu [0] http://hackage.haskell.org/package/syntactical _______________________________________________ Haskell-Cafe mailing list Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe