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Ask HN: Have you created a programming language and why?

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Re: Ask HN: Have you created a programming language and why?

#231

Post by bryanrasmussen »

I implemented one in XSLT, we were developing a product in 2003 that was supposed to be a media management system. Managing the transformation from popular XML formats or any generic XML to various media outputs. I created the language so you could call write logic code inside of your input XML, calling functions was done either with markup or using a uri scheme (this was trick to get around possible validation issues)

Each media and format had a configuration file, it was inside of this file that variables and functions were defined. If you tried to call a function that was not defined in your context that part of the tree was removed from the output (figuring it was better to make the output than to fail). This also meant that you could branch and override functions and variables dependent on the media or input format.

Re: Ask HN: Have you created a programming language and why?

#233

Post by jbb123 »

I've done some tiny domain specific interpreters for specialized use in products.

I think I'm going to have to though. I used to like C++ but I really am not a fan of the direction it's moving in. It used to be a simple "better C" that let you write abstactions over simple code that you could understand how

Re: Ask HN: Have you created a programming language and why?

#234

Post by jbb123 »

I've done some tiny domain specific interpreters for specialized use in products.

I think I'm going to have to though. I used to like C++ but I really am not a fan of the direction it's moving in. It used to be a simple "better C" that let you write abstactions over simple code that you could understand how

Re: Ask HN: Have you created a programming language and why?

#236

Post by seesomesense »

wrs wrote: post #174

I made NewtonScript, starting in 1992. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NewtonScript ) The other viable choice was to have application developers write everything for the Newton in C or C++. By giving them a much higher-level framework (Scheme/Self-like language + UI views/interaction + indexed object store) we were able to get more functionality into the product/ecosystem faster and more reliably. At least I think so…

Respect !

I bought a Newton in 2007 or so, just to be able to play with NewtonScript.

Re: Ask HN: Have you created a programming language and why?

#237

Post by gmac »

ng12 wrote: post #181
gmac wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ditto. CoffeeScript made JS almost Ruby-level fun for me. I've now switched mainly to TypeScript, which is also great (so many fewer runtime errors!). But I still miss thin arrow functions, array comprehensions, the existential operator ... What I really want these days is CoffeeScript on top of TypeScript.

Same. Idiomatic Coffeescript was so much fun it gave me a borderline obsession with brevity. Array comprehensions also largely removed the need for lodash/underscore. Give me an optionally typed, ES6-flavored Coffeescript and I'll be a happy developer.

Agreed, the brevity's the thing. As I felt moved to write in 2014: http://blog.mackerron.com/2014/10/29/great-coffeescript/

And, as you say, array comprehensions largely remove the need for each/map/filter etc, which also has potential for a nice performance boost.

Re: Ask HN: Have you created a programming language and why?

#238

Post by Entangled »

zephyrfalcon wrote: post #128
Entangled wrote: post #82

I play language designer in my free time, I have like ten languages buried in folders with thousands of abandoned projects. My recent endeavour was a language with only five constructs that would mimic mathematics in the way we program: = assign $ print @ loop ? condition ! else # definition/function So print hello world would be like: $ 'Hello world' Every single program in the whole universe can be easily translate…

That reminds me a bit of PILOT: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PILOT

What a coincidence, I am also working on a language that uses three letters for instructions and every single line starts with one, same concept as Uno:

    say 'hello world'
    let list = [1,2,3]
    for item in list: say item
    def add(x,y): ret x+y
    is? a=1 say 'ok' no? say 'wrong'
Easier for the compiler and for the human.

Re: Ask HN: Have you created a programming language and why?

#240

Post by hzhou321 »

roel_v wrote: post #80

I wrote a 'language' that essentially compiled down to several other languages (C++, PHP, Javascript were mostly implemented) but unlike e.g. Haxe, it didn't try to hide any of the underlying languages; instead, for parts that weren't abstracted by the language, you had to provide your own implementation blocks for each specific language. This basically made a file that was meant to be used from e.g. C++ and PHP a mi…

Sounds similar to MyDef: https://github.com/hzhou/MyDef. However, MyDef doesn't attempt to be a new language, it attempts to be meta-layer. With MyDef you can save time with boilerplate, and more importantly, reorganize code into a better semantical structure.
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