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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?

#241

Post by hzhou321 »

benibela wrote: post #130

I kind of make a new language for every project. Rather than writing a program directly, I write pseudocode to solve the program, and then build a language that runs just that pseudocode. I had to query lots of data from webpages, so I made a pattern matching language where the program is a sample of the webpage. E.g. to query the the text of some text , you write the "program"/pattern {.} . Or if the webpage had mul…

> I kind of make a new language for every project. Rather than writing a program directly, I write pseudocode to solve the program, and then build a language that runs just that pseudocode.

I love that approach. Don't let non-essential constraints limit the elegance of your solutions.

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

#242

Post by Shorel »

jcoffland wrote: post #179
sgt101 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't it just possessing both conditionals and loops?

Not necessarily. Purely functional languages, like Lisp, do not have loops. Instead they have recursion. Any iterative algorithm (I.e. one with loops) can provably be converted to a recursive algorithm with out iteration.

Lisp is more multi-paradigm than pure functional. And we like it that way. It can be functional, object oriented, aspect oriented, etc.

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

#243

Post by Shorel »

billconan wrote: post #7
jcoffland wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For your first idea see: * cmake * premake * ant * scons * ninja * gyp * jam * gn (Google) * meson To name just a few. Your second idea is basically UML and some of the tools that exist for it.

I use cmake, don't think it's a language.

It may or may not be a Turing complete programming language, but it surely is a language.

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

#244

Post by Paul_S »

throwaway7645 wrote: post #132
Paul_S wrote: post #41

I created a scripting language for my interactive fiction engine because the existing ones have too many assumptions about gameplay. It's Turing complete with ultra minimalist syntax using punctuation as the few keywords it has.

Github page? Sounds interesting as I've always wanted to write one, but never had the time and I'm sure Inform7 is bigger than what I need.

I keep my Internet personas separate - just like your throwaway7645 account name suggests you do. It's not that big, I wrote it in between jobs. It's only there so that non-tech people can write stories for it. Nowadays I'd just use any old scripting language and write a library for that instead. I suggest you go with that solution instead.

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

#245

Post by Paul_S »

klibertp wrote: post #226
Paul_S wrote: post #41

I created a scripting language for my interactive fiction engine because the existing ones have too many assumptions about gameplay. It's Turing complete with ultra minimalist syntax using punctuation as the few keywords it has.

Is it (the engine) multiplayer capable? I'm working on a cross between IF and LP-style MUDs with support for graphics and sounds, using Io as both implementation language and scripting language (and probably Nim for GUI once I get to it). The code lives here: https://github.com/piotrklibert/mrtr and is currently a mess, I also got side-tracked and started porting pyparsing to Io to get a nice DSL for parsing user's c…

Mine was single player and had no parser as it was intended for touchscreens and drop down menu interface. Also see my reply below - your solution is far more sensible and is what I would go with today too.

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

#246

Post by a0 »

I'm working on Fold – a modern functional language with lisp-like macro-system on top of OCaml.

- https://github.com/fold-lang/fold/wiki/Language-Overview

The language syntax is defined as a library and can be extended, which makes Fold ideal for DSL implementation. The powerful macro system can also be used to perform many static optimisations. My goal is to have a very flexible and performant language specially suitable for data processing.

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

#247

Post by fao_ »

koonsolo wrote: post #37
fao_ wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://inform7.com/

Inform was a huge inspiration for me! But there are some things I didn't like and so try to improve: - It comes with a manual. You shouldn't need a manual for something simple. - Too much prose, I like more structural things. If inform is a book, my Screenplay is technical documentation. Inform is great for what it does, but I guess I needed something slightly different.

> You shouldn't need a manual for something simple.

That's like saying "Everyone knows how to drive a car, you just keep it pointing forward and engage the engine".

Everything needs some sort of documentation, whether it be through examples (the way love2d.org/wiki is done, for example, is both informative and useful), documentation, BNF, etc. The fact that a manual exists is not a detriment, but a success -- you have enough features and complexity worthy of documenting it (although I don't mean to imply that larger is bigger :) ).

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