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Rhombus Language

rhombus-lang.org

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Re: Rhombus Language

#21

Post by orthoxerox »

I am going to play the devil's advocate. What problem does Rhombus solve? An approachable syntax is a necessary, but not sufficient requirement for mass adoption.

According to the goals page, its other major feature is an extensible syntax. Why should I prefer it over, say, Scala? Scala has syntax macros, it runs on the JVM and can access Java's massive library of libraries, it has been used to implement large and complex projects like Spark and Lichess, what's that niche in which Rhombus can defeat Scala or Rust or Elixir?

Re: Rhombus Language

#22

Post by otabdeveloper4 »

galaxyLogic wrote: post #19
bmitc wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the relation to Haskell? The language is basically Racket, which is a Scheme at its core. There's very little in common with a language like Haskell.

So it's not PURE!

Yeah, it doesn't have the one thing that makes Haskell Haskell.

Re: Rhombus Language

#23

Post by xelxebar »

orthoxerox wrote: post #21

I am going to play the devil's advocate. What problem does Rhombus solve? An approachable syntax is a necessary, but not sufficient requirement for mass adoption. According to the goals page, its other major feature is an extensible syntax. Why should I prefer it over, say, Scala? Scala has syntax macros, it runs on the JVM and can access Java's massive library of libraries, it has been used to implement large and co…

> Many newer languages include a macro system to enable extensibility, but few would argue that the new batch of macro systems have achieved the expressiveness and fluidity of macros as they exist within the Lisp tradition, which includes Racket.

It sounds like the authors see Lisp-style macros as uniquely powerful and are exploring how to bring similar meta-programming power to languages with syntax other than just s-expressions.

> what's that niche in which Rhombus can defeat Scala or Rust or Elixir

Good question. My read is that Rhombus isn't motivated by solving some "real world" problem and is instead an exploration in language design.

Re: Rhombus Language

#24

Post by virgilp »

orthoxerox wrote: post #21

I am going to play the devil's advocate. What problem does Rhombus solve? An approachable syntax is a necessary, but not sufficient requirement for mass adoption. According to the goals page, its other major feature is an extensible syntax. Why should I prefer it over, say, Scala? Scala has syntax macros, it runs on the JVM and can access Java's massive library of libraries, it has been used to implement large and co…

This is not playing devil's advocate - this is a _VERY_ legitimate question. I'll go further and say that without a "killer app" (and/or strong corporate backer), a language doesn't typically take off nowadays, regardless how good it is ([edit] but to the point of another commenter - I do agree that "exploration" is a good enough reason; one doesn't need to write languages only with the goal of making them popular).

- Scala: only really took off with Spark (had Akka before but wasn't really that popular)

- Python: might've died if not for numpy/pandas/ ML

- Ruby: Rails

- Typescript: V8/Node.js / javascript on the server-side

- Go: Google, Kubernetes (and even so it's questionable how popular it _really_ is)

- Swift: Apple, iOS apps (to a somewhat similar extent: Kotlin, for Android development).

- C#: I can't really name the "killer app", but... Microsoft. (to be fair the "killer app" itself might be the whole MS ecosystem integration)

There are a lot of decent languages (Clojure, D) that never got popular, despite their merits. Even Kotlin mentioned above is arguably a much better choice than Java on the server side. But it's not used that much on the server, even though it actually has the answer to "what problem does it solve" (easy way to write async code in JVM, which is not a small thing)

Re: Rhombus Language

#25

Post by neonsunset »

virgilp wrote: post #24
orthoxerox wrote: post #21

I am going to play the devil's advocate. What problem does Rhombus solve? An approachable syntax is a necessary, but not sufficient requirement for mass adoption. According to the goals page, its other major feature is an extensible syntax. Why should I prefer it over, say, Scala? Scala has syntax macros, it runs on the JVM and can access Java's massive library of libraries, it has been used to implement large and co…

This is not playing devil's advocate - this is a _VERY_ legitimate question. I'll go further and say that without a "killer app" (and/or strong corporate backer), a language doesn't typically take off nowadays, regardless how good it is ([edit] but to the point of another commenter - I do agree that "exploration" is a good enough reason; one doesn't need to write languages only with the goal of making them popular).…

C#: ASP.NET Core (a slimmer, faster Spring Boot), EF Core (better Prism, jOOQ, etc.), very flexible build targets (JVM-style, self-contained JIT and AOT binaries), easy integration with F#, good pattern matching, access to low-level features only rivaled by Swift (although Swift has its own set of issues). Far better performance ceiling than all the languages here on the list.

Re: Rhombus Language

#26

Post by rscho »

virgilp wrote: post #24
orthoxerox wrote: post #21

I am going to play the devil's advocate. What problem does Rhombus solve? An approachable syntax is a necessary, but not sufficient requirement for mass adoption. According to the goals page, its other major feature is an extensible syntax. Why should I prefer it over, say, Scala? Scala has syntax macros, it runs on the JVM and can access Java's massive library of libraries, it has been used to implement large and co…

This is not playing devil's advocate - this is a _VERY_ legitimate question. I'll go further and say that without a "killer app" (and/or strong corporate backer), a language doesn't typically take off nowadays, regardless how good it is ([edit] but to the point of another commenter - I do agree that "exploration" is a good enough reason; one doesn't need to write languages only with the goal of making them popular).…

I don't think they care so much as you think about 'takeoff'. It's mostly a research project in programming pedagogy. They're trying to make lisp features more accessible to students in universities. A takeoff would sure be appreciated, but the immediate goal is not a takeover of the industry.

The author (M Flatt) is an incredibly gifted and productive programmer, btw.

Re: Rhombus Language

#27

Post by eviks »

How hard would it be to uniquely extend the language to make *fun* into *fn* and *...* into a single letter *…*?

    fun all_same([str0, str, ...]):
      all(str0 == str, ...)

Re: Rhombus Language

#28

Post by rscho »

eviks wrote: post #27

How hard would it be to uniquely extend the language to make *fun* into *fn* and *...* into a single letter *…*? fun all_same([str0, str, ...]): all(str0 == str, ...)

Very easy. You could do it yourself after 5 min of reading ;-)

Re: Rhombus Language

#29

Post by timkq »

pmontra wrote: post #18

The examples on the home page are a nice way to quickly show the features of a language. I'll check the documentation to see how to work with files, make HTTP calls, parse JSON. It's the first time in more than 10 years that I actually feel like trying a new language. The last time was Elixir. Since then I had to use Lua (hobby project) and Python (work) but I don't enjoy them much. I would have skipped them if I had…

TypeScript & Rust don't "look nice to work with" because they force you to write maintainable code that doesn't just stop working because of a random runtime error. In my opinion, Go looks nice to work with but actually is a hidden monster full of footguns.

Re: Rhombus Language

#30

Post by orthoxerox »

neonsunset wrote: post #25
virgilp wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not playing devil's advocate - this is a _VERY_ legitimate question. I'll go further and say that without a "killer app" (and/or strong corporate backer), a language doesn't typically take off nowadays, regardless how good it is ([edit] but to the point of another commenter - I do agree that "exploration" is a good enough reason; one doesn't need to write languages only with the goal of making them popular).…

C#: ASP.NET Core (a slimmer, faster Spring Boot), EF Core (better Prism, jOOQ, etc.), very flexible build targets (JVM-style, self-contained JIT and AOT binaries), easy integration with F#, good pattern matching, access to low-level features only rivaled by Swift (although Swift has its own set of issues). Far better performance ceiling than all the languages here on the list.

You forgot async/await. But all that wasn't what propelled C# to popularity, and I say that as someone who's been writing it since 2002. It was an army of VB6 and Delphi line-of-business programmers migrating to the new stack and enterprises running Windows.

The next big killer application was Unity, which didn't even use Microsoft .NET.

Everything else is just marginal advantage: if you're a JVM shop, the existing experience of your programmers is more valuable than the speed of modern .NET or better pattern matching. But if you want to switch to making games, then switching to C# and/or C++ starts making sense.

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