The Omega programming language
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The Omega programming language
1–10 of 21 posts
Re: The Omega programming language
#2How do you blur read/compile/run time when one of your goals is to have a complete type system?
By putting all of the type system in the parser, but leave the runtime as a fully dynamic late-bound JIT VM. There is already a precedent for this in Java and in the Strongtalk variant of Smalltalk. To complete the picture, we just need a way to map the types before the code-change to the types that exist afterwards. There's already been some work towards this. (Java/Eclipse)
Re: The Omega programming language
#3Omega is undefined when the relative weights of [expressiveness, terseness, maintainability, readability, flexibility] are undefined. For any given set of weights you could perhaps come up with a reasonable answer (even then you have to try to quantify things like maintainability), since some languages are more terse but less readable, or more readable but less expressive, etc.
If all the weights are equal, then I'd argue for Python, though I'm sure plenty of Rubyists and Lispers and Haskellians would disagree.
Re: The Omega programming language
#4The reasons why these languages are created is because they are meant to solve your problem the correct way.
Java is a scalable language, for example, and using it correctly makes a good programmer. This goes for every language, whether it's C, Python, Javascript, ect. Good programmers know a wide variety of languages and when it comes to 'Omega' I think it's the combination of the languages used what they are meant for.
Re: The Omega programming language
#5Wow, since the author starts talking about "Omega" without introducing it as a concept of some ultimate language, I assumed he was talking about the Omega Programming Language (In fact, it looks like there are two: http://code.google.com/p/omega/ and http://www.pervasive.jku.at/About_Us/Staff/_Blaschek/Omega/) and was thoroughly confused.
Re: The Omega programming language
#6He indicates Haskell and Lisp as the two leading candidates for Omega, but I think that just illustrates the wrongness of the premise that there is a singular end-game as far as languages go.
The thing is, you couldn't have a convergence of Lisp and Haskell without destroying what makes them good at the same time. The essence of Lisp is that it is endlessly dynamic, the essence of Haskell is its insanely strong type system. I can't think of any way these could be effectively combined.
These languages aren't converging on a as-yet-unknown Omega point, they started at more or less the same point and then took off in completely different directions, and they aren't looking back.
Re: The Omega programming language
#7Lisp and ML (as in Haskell) are dark magic from the early days of computing that are continually rediscovered. Currently they form an undercurrent, not just of language features but programming philosophy, that is shaping the new and emerging languages of today. Many of us have observed how learning a language like Lisp and becoming familiar with the idioms of programming with it can have a profound impact on how we write in other languages.
In this spirit, consider a lesser-mentioned language from the same era- Forth. Discard any preconceptions you may have about stack-oriented languages and take a few days to sit down and read "Thinking Forth"[1], which delves deeply into the architectural philosophy that goes along with the language. Forth is at once mind-numbingly close to hardware and surprisingly well-suited to readable, high-level expression.
Re: The Omega programming language
#8He indicates Haskell and Lisp as the two leading candidates for Omega, but I think that just illustrates the wrongness of the premise that there is a singular end-game as far as languages go. The thing is, you couldn't have a convergence of Lisp and Haskell without destroying what makes them good at the same time. The essence of Lisp is that it is endlessly dynamic, the essence of Haskell is its insanely strong type…
Agreed, except with the "they aren't looking back" part. If that were true, Lisk and Liskell wouldn't exist (and people wouldn't be wondering aloud "How can I get pattern matching-definitions or point free style in Lisp?")
The conclusion of the article was more or less that you can't get a perfect combination of the two, and that any unification that might emerge will have to make decisions about which features to cherry-pick.
I'm also not clear on what you mean by "they started at more or less the same point".
Re: The Omega programming language
#9Lisp and ML (as in Haskell) are dark magic from the early days of computing that are continually rediscovered. Currently they form an undercurrent, not just of language features but programming philosophy, that is shaping the new and emerging languages of today. Many of us have observed how learning a language like Lisp and becoming familiar with the idioms of programming with it can have a profound impact on how we…
I haven't had a chance to play with it seriously yet, but I went over a "getting started" tutorial a while back. forth-mode is installed and ready on Emacs in case I get some spare time; it's on my to-do list along with some more serious Python, Clojure, Scala and Smalltalk experimentation.
Re: The Omega programming language
#10Wow, since the author starts talking about "Omega" without introducing it as a concept of some ultimate language, I assumed he was talking about the Omega Programming Language (In fact, it looks like there are two: http://code.google.com/p/omega/ and http://www.pervasive.jku.at/About_Us/Staff/_Blaschek/Omega/ ) and was thoroughly confused.
Sorry about the confusion.
"Omega" was a reference to the Seibel talk I quote from, in which he casually postulates Omega as the most powerful language that might be built for current architectures.