It's impressive to see how many runtimes Clojure has already been ported to.
I'm starting to get my hopes up for a world where a Clojure FRP core drives apps in a host of target languages.
The Language-Language Matrix
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Re: The Language-Language Matrix
#22I have to agree with Yegge, good tools are a big problem (http://googlehow.com/2013/10/09/stanford-seminar-googles-ste...). His project becomes more important as more compilers are written - I hope it exists outside Google someday.
Re: The Language-Language Matrix
#23It's impressive to see how many runtimes Clojure has already been ported to. I'm starting to get my hopes up for a world where a Clojure FRP core drives apps in a host of target languages.
What we see in Clojure (like other Lisps) is minimal syntax directed at the idea of homoiconicity. This means that the program's structure is similar to its syntax. It also means that we can represent the program as a data structure in the language itself.
So (1) Simple syntax, and (2) being able to represent the program structure in the language easily, both lead to making it easy to build compilers, interpreters and bytecode compilers. The barrier to entry for these tasks is lower in Clojure.
Many would also say that (1) and (2) make Clojure a joy to program in, but I'll leave that to the reader to judge for themselves.
Re: The Language-Language Matrix
#24Nice. Some observations: Many languages compile to JavaScript(has highest number of source languages). Java(I think JVM) and C++(native binaries??) has higher source languages. Clojure has highest target languages(good to learn then). Java to Java => Beanshell is interesting.
This indicates that JavaScript is a pain in the ass, which it is.
This is neither an argument against JavaScript nor was it indended as one, just a personal observation from a long-time JavaScript programmer.
Re: The Language-Language Matrix
#25No entry for (Common Lisp → Common Lisp) or (Scheme → Scheme)?
Re: The Language-Language Matrix
#26Is it just me, or does the fact that every other language is getting translated to Javascript suggest a lot of problems with the language that so many people are willing to write translators?
(I am not a big fan of JS myself, but I also don't feel I have used the language enough to be competent with it).
Re: The Language-Language Matrix
#27It would be interesting to do a "chineese whispers" type experiment on these and see what comes out at the end of translating code through multiple languages.
Re: The Language-Language Matrix
#28Is it just me, or does the fact that every other language is getting translated to Javascript suggest a lot of problems with the language that so many people are willing to write translators? (I am not a big fan of JS myself, but I also don't feel I have used the language enough to be competent with it).
I'm more inclined to believed that people want to run their programs in a browser, and js is a requirement in that runtime environment.
Most devs are sadly quite reluctant to trying out new languages, and would rather recompile.
Re: The Language-Language Matrix
#29Here's C in Common Lisp: https://github.com/vsedach/Vacietis#readme
Re: The Language-Language Matrix
#30Is it just me, or does the fact that every other language is getting translated to Javascript suggest a lot of problems with the language that so many people are willing to write translators? (I am not a big fan of JS myself, but I also don't feel I have used the language enough to be competent with it).
Does having a foreign function interface to C mean that C is better?
It's better to see Javascript as a bytecode than as a language in these cases. It just happens that the bytecode looks like the language.