Miranda released as free software • Hacker News Board

Re: Miranda released as free software

#21

Post by Multicomp » Sat, Feb 29, 2020, 3:02 AM UTC

jungletime wrote: post #19

Back in the 90s I remember taking a course that used Simple ML. I was pretty amazed by it's elegant syntax, and If I remember it correctly, it was either based on, or related to Miranda. I haven't really used a functional language since university. But would love to try one again. Whats worth checking out? I know nothing. Anything I can use to make a website or an interesting project within a week of learning.

F# is an ml inspired language running on the .net clr.

Use the SAFE template if you are interested in doing web development with this language.

Re: Miranda released as free software

#22

Post by rpeden » Sat, Feb 29, 2020, 3:03 AM UTC

jungletime wrote: post #19

Back in the 90s I remember taking a course that used Simple ML. I was pretty amazed by it's elegant syntax, and If I remember it correctly, it was either based on, or related to Miranda. I haven't really used a functional language since university. But would love to try one again. Whats worth checking out? I know nothing. Anything I can use to make a website or an interesting project within a week of learning.

You might like Elm if you're looking to do a fun web project and you enjoy MLish syntax.

Re: Miranda released as free software

#23

Post by bakul » Sat, Feb 29, 2020, 3:16 AM UTC

kick wrote: post #2

You've at least heard of (if not used) a programming language heavily inspired by Miranda: Haskell. A lot of things about Miranda were really interesting; it reflects modern languages in some ways, but looks completely foreign in other ways. Like Haskell, whitespace was significant; unlike Haskell, it was fast. Really fast. It was one of the pioneering purely-functional languages, but seems to have been mostly forgot…

I learned about Miranda from the appendix of "The Implementation of Functional Programming Languages" 1987 book by Simon Peyton Jones (IIRC one can find a PDF copy online). I liked it a lot though I had no access to its implementation. Glad to know it is now available. Its implementation is small by today's standards!

Re: Miranda released as free software

#24

Post by jungletime » Sat, Feb 29, 2020, 3:21 AM UTC

Multicomp wrote: post #21

jungletime wrote: post #19

Back in the 90s I remember taking a course that used Simple ML. I was pretty amazed by it's elegant syntax, and If I remember it correctly, it was either based on, or related to Miranda. I haven't really used a functional language since university. But would love to try one again. Whats worth checking out? I know nothing. Anything I can use to make a website or an interesting project within a week of learning.

F# is an ml inspired language running on the .net clr. Use the SAFE template if you are interested in doing web development with this language.

Is this possible to use on a Mac

Re: Miranda released as free software

#25

Post by jungletime » Sat, Feb 29, 2020, 3:21 AM UTC

rpeden wrote: post #22

jungletime wrote: post #19

Back in the 90s I remember taking a course that used Simple ML. I was pretty amazed by it's elegant syntax, and If I remember it correctly, it was either based on, or related to Miranda. I haven't really used a functional language since university. But would love to try one again. Whats worth checking out? I know nothing. Anything I can use to make a website or an interesting project within a week of learning.

You might like Elm if you're looking to do a fun web project and you enjoy MLish syntax.

Just reading about it ... thanks

Re: Miranda released as free software

#26

Post by saagarjha » Sat, Feb 29, 2020, 3:47 AM UTC

kick wrote: post #12

hyper_reality wrote: post #11

Miranda is still taught as a language for University College London's Functional Programming course: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/module-catalogue/modules/functional-pr... Students grumble at having to learn such an esoteric language; the justification of the professor is that it's simpler and more focussed than Haskell and so better for teaching functional concepts. This may be true but perhaps he's just been teaching the…

He's right! Haskell is still stuck with most of the wrong decisions they made in '88, and it was intended as a (clunkier) Miranda clone, anyway.

> Haskell is still stuck with most of the wrong decisions they made in '88

Which ones?

Re: Miranda released as free software

#27

Post by jolux » Sat, Feb 29, 2020, 4:26 AM UTC

jungletime wrote: post #24

Multicomp wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

F# is an ml inspired language running on the .net clr. Use the SAFE template if you are interested in doing web development with this language.

Is this possible to use on a Mac

Definitely, using .NET Core.

Re: Miranda released as free software

#28

Post by kristianp » Sat, Feb 29, 2020, 4:36 AM UTC

Multicomp wrote: post #21

jungletime wrote: post #19

Back in the 90s I remember taking a course that used Simple ML. I was pretty amazed by it's elegant syntax, and If I remember it correctly, it was either based on, or related to Miranda. I haven't really used a functional language since university. But would love to try one again. Whats worth checking out? I know nothing. Anything I can use to make a website or an interesting project within a week of learning.

F# is an ml inspired language running on the .net clr. Use the SAFE template if you are interested in doing web development with this language.

This? What does safe stand for? https://safe-stack.github.io

Re: Miranda released as free software

#29

Post by brmgb » Sat, Feb 29, 2020, 4:38 AM UTC

saagarjha wrote: post #26

kick wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's right! Haskell is still stuck with most of the wrong decisions they made in '88, and it was intended as a (clunkier) Miranda clone, anyway.

> Haskell is still stuck with most of the wrong decisions they made in '88 Which ones?

While I don't agree with the general snarkiness towards Haskell of the commenter you are replying to, being lazy by default could be seen as Haskell original mistake. It was interesting from a research point of view though.

Re: Miranda released as free software

#30

Post by mark_l_watson » Sat, Feb 29, 2020, 4:41 AM UTC

I read the overview, cool language, very cool to see it open sourced, and just looking at the code it is clear how much it inspired Haskell.

I started hacking (a lot!) this week on an experimental project in Swift. Swift is similar to Haskell and Miranda in supporting functional programming. I like Haskell’s syntax and in general REPL based Haskell development, so at first Swift’s syntax bugged me. However, when I set my project up with Playgrounds for developing bits of low level functionality in what is effectively a REPL environment, and spent a day with XCode, I now think Swift is a worthy substitute for Haskell for some projects (i.e., when targeting macOS and/or iOS).