Motivation – Keli Language • Hacker News Board

Re: Motivation – Keli Language

#11

Post by b34r » Mon, Aug 31, 2020, 2:42 PM UTC

IshKebab wrote: post #9

maest wrote: post #3

The following example is kinda funny: // This is obviously not too right ",".splitBy("1,2,3,4,5") // This should be right, because it reads out more naturally "1,2,3,4,5".splitBy(",") Seeing as Python uses the first version for .join()

Yeah Python (and I think JavaScript?) pretty clearly have `join` backwards.

JS uses the second example

Re: Motivation – Keli Language

#12

Post by pmontra » Mon, Aug 31, 2020, 2:43 PM UTC

maest wrote: post #3

The following example is kinda funny: // This is obviously not too right ",".splitBy("1,2,3,4,5") // This should be right, because it reads out more naturally "1,2,3,4,5".splitBy(",") Seeing as Python uses the first version for .join()

Exactly what I came here to write about:

  Python 3.8.2 (default, Jul 16 2020, 14:00:26) 
  >>> " ".join(["a", "b"])
  'a b'

vs Ruby

  2.6.5 :001 > ["a", "b"].join(" ")
  => "a b"

I don't know which one is more natural but I prefer the Ruby version because it's consistent with

  "a b".split(" ")

which works in both languages. One less think to remember.

Re: Motivation – Keli Language

#13

Post by sfvisser » Mon, Aug 31, 2020, 2:44 PM UTC

I really appreciate the effort of designing the syntax to match common IDE expectations. However, I think it shouldn't be too difficult to add intellisense for Haskell-like syntax to IDEs as well. Especially with all the types available!

The only unconventional thing is that the function might be put in-front of the value and some parentheses need to be added, instead of just putting it after the cursor like with method syntax. I assume you get used to that rather quickly.

Re: Motivation – Keli Language

#14

Post by tobr » Mon, Aug 31, 2020, 2:46 PM UTC

Great to see the motivation spelled out clearly, but something seems strange. If you read the Quora answer, it just rants about how functional programming is obsessed with big words and esoteric concepts that are hard to grok, and that this constitutes poor UX. But Keli’s interpretation seems to be that the moment-to-moment experience in the IDE is poor, and that that’s what the language wants to address with more explicit syntax and intellisense support. These seem like two very different problems under the umbrella term “UX”.

Re: Motivation – Keli Language

#15

Post by centimeter » Mon, Aug 31, 2020, 2:46 PM UTC

I disagree with all points in the article - the user experience with existing FP languages is superior, and the IDE integration for strongly typed languages is generally very impressive.

Syntactic window dressing isn’t what makes or breaks a language.

Re: Motivation – Keli Language

#16

Post by SomeoneFromCA » Mon, Aug 31, 2020, 2:46 PM UTC

I've almost misread it as "Keil", which brought bad recollections of their IDE C/C++ IDE.

Re: Motivation – Keli Language

#17

Post by dnautics » Mon, Aug 31, 2020, 2:49 PM UTC

ollysb wrote: post #8

While I could get onboard with functional languages being more user friendly I didn't find the motivation to be compelling. > Ambiguous functions argument positions It just seems to be advocating for named arguments, something which the majority of languages (OO or FP) support these days. You could say that requiring named parameters is a feature but it's hard to get excited about. > Not Intellisense friendly I use E…

Elixir is very good about function positions, too, by being consistent in it's stdlib, and by pinning structs to modules. Almost all library writers adhere to the convention.

Re: Motivation – Keli Language

#18

Post by exclipy » Mon, Aug 31, 2020, 2:50 PM UTC

Anyone else irked by the use of "Intellisense" - a Microsoft brand - when "autocomplete" will do?

Re: Motivation – Keli Language

#19

Post by GrinningFool » Mon, Aug 31, 2020, 2:51 PM UTC

Another way to solve the problem the author is looking to fix is by convention:

    splitStringBy "1,2,3,4,5" "," 
     ^ action
          ^ Arg1
               ^ Arg2

Re: Motivation – Keli Language

#20

Post by gmfawcett » Mon, Aug 31, 2020, 2:51 PM UTC

The author lists Ocaml as "non-IDE-friendly." This is not my experience. Ocaml is one of the most IDE friendly languages I have in my toolkit right now -- not just functional languages, but all of them. Ocaml + Emacs + Merlin is stable, accurate, very fast (responsive), and easy to set up and configure.

Plus, named and named-optional parameters are supported in the language, and can be used to good effect for disambiguating function parameters of similar type (the split, join problem).