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Cell Lang: Why yet another programming language?

cell-lang.net

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Re: Cell Lang: Why yet another programming language?

#31

Post by thejammahimself »

kortex wrote: post #6

It's frustrating that innovators are constantly having to justify "why yet another". Folks should just be able to freely innovate without fear of getting spammed with xkcd#927. You wanna make yet another programming language, compiler, JSON-alternative, container format, or trivial FTP+SVN killer, go for it! This is how we innovate.

I think the reason for the justification is because in a field like programming where we have so many different languages, if there are any newcomers you'd want to know what sort of gap they have found which existing languages do not fill.

As others have pointed out, there's a difference between creating something just for the experience of it, and creating something because no other similar solutions exist. This project seems to fit in the latter category hence why a justification has been offered.

Re: Cell Lang: Why yet another programming language?

#32

Post by spicybright »

gscho wrote: post #21

> Why yet another programming language? 'Because I wanted to' is a sufficient reason. Create all the programming languages you want and share it with the world!

I know it's a total pipe dream, but this is what makes me most sad about lisp never being taken seriously.

It could have been common practice to create and pull in new language constructs like what this is doing.

Re: Cell Lang: Why yet another programming language?

#33

Post by acjohnson55 »

samuell wrote: post #24
dustingetz wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

temporal.io = durable actors for microservices workflows

Trying to understand what this is. A kind of Erlang runtime for Go/Java/PHP/TS?

I'd describe it as a system that let's you write software without regard for the lifecycle of the OS and hardware running it. The Temporal runtime takes care of rehydrating your program in the correct state if the underlying computer is killed. This eliminates a tremendous amount of incidental complexity most traditional monolithic and distributed architectures.

Re: Cell Lang: Why yet another programming language?

#34

Post by bobajeff »

gscho wrote: post #21

> Why yet another programming language? 'Because I wanted to' is a sufficient reason. Create all the programming languages you want and share it with the world!

Yeah, I plan on making at least 5 of them for one project. I think more people/project should reach for making/using different programming languages. Instead of trying to solve every problem in the same language.

Re: Cell Lang: Why yet another programming language?

#35

Post by runeks »

the_duke wrote: post #4

So basically an actor system with relations between actors, reactivity and automatic persistence. Very interesting concept! Although I do wonder if this couldn't be implemented as a library for an existing language. Doesn't seem like it is actively developed though, the compiler repo hasn't seen updates since November and the runtime repo since 2018.

> Although I do wonder if this couldn't be implemented as a library for an existing language.

It definitely could. So could Elm, which — nonetheless — is an interesting and useful language (bordering on DSL).

Re: Cell Lang: Why yet another programming language?

#37

Post by ilikehurdles »

spicybright wrote: post #32
gscho wrote: post #21

> Why yet another programming language? 'Because I wanted to' is a sufficient reason. Create all the programming languages you want and share it with the world!

I know it's a total pipe dream, but this is what makes me most sad about lisp never being taken seriously. It could have been common practice to create and pull in new language constructs like what this is doing.

Clojure seems to be gaining more and more momentum, unfortunately just as I changed jobs away from a clojure shop.

Re: Cell Lang: Why yet another programming language?

#39

Post by pavon »

kortex wrote: post #6

It's frustrating that innovators are constantly having to justify "why yet another". Folks should just be able to freely innovate without fear of getting spammed with xkcd#927. You wanna make yet another programming language, compiler, JSON-alternative, container format, or trivial FTP+SVN killer, go for it! This is how we innovate.

I don't see this as a problem. If someone is creating something new they have a reason, something that is motivating them. Explaining these reasons lets others know if the project is something that interests them or not. This is especially important for collaborative projects to attract people whose goals meet your own and who can contribute additional ideas that you wouldn't have thought of without being a distraction because they are trying to pull the project in different direction than you had in mind. It is also important to attract users if that is something you want.

Its not justification, it is just communication.

Re: Cell Lang: Why yet another programming language?

#40

Post by omoikane »

kortex wrote: post #6

It's frustrating that innovators are constantly having to justify "why yet another". Folks should just be able to freely innovate without fear of getting spammed with xkcd#927. You wanna make yet another programming language, compiler, JSON-alternative, container format, or trivial FTP+SVN killer, go for it! This is how we innovate.

I find it valuable that they spelled out their motivations and agenda for creating this language, which will help prospective users to decide whether they need to take this language seriously or not. This helps attract users, and arguably the main value of any language is how well users can interoperate with it.

Folks can freely create anything, but it might be a shame for such efforts to go to something that only few people will use.

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