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The Crystal Programming Language

crystal-lang.org

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Re: The Crystal Programming Language

#41

Post by Sodel »

asterite wrote: post #24
zeeone wrote: post #16

Just curious, why Crystal? It looks just like Ruby. What problem(s) are you addressing with Crystal?

We like the way Ruby lets you quickly prototype things, but its performance isn't very good (it's just good) and it also lacks static type checks (for example "undefined method '...' for Nil" is a very common runtime error). So, we are trying to create a language with all the nice aspects of Ruby but with static checks and better performance. Of course that comes at a price: no dynamic aspects (no eval, no instance_e…

I recommend adding something about static type checking to the list at the top of Crystal's homepage. I saw "never have to specify the type of...", and believed it was another dynamically typed language.

I actually didn't know it had static type checking until I had closed the tab, and glanced at this comment you posted here. (I know, I didn't read very far in the linked page.)

That aside, it looks neat! :)

Re: The Crystal Programming Language

#43

Post by asterite »

Sodel wrote: post #41
asterite wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We like the way Ruby lets you quickly prototype things, but its performance isn't very good (it's just good) and it also lacks static type checks (for example "undefined method '...' for Nil" is a very common runtime error). So, we are trying to create a language with all the nice aspects of Ruby but with static checks and better performance. Of course that comes at a price: no dynamic aspects (no eval, no instance_e…

I recommend adding something about static type checking to the list at the top of Crystal's homepage. I saw "never have to specify the type of...", and believed it was another dynamically typed language. I actually didn't know it had static type checking until I had closed the tab, and glanced at this comment you posted here. (I know, I didn't read very far in the linked page.) That aside, it looks neat! :)

You are right, it's far from obvious after reading that list. I updated it. Thanks!

Re: The Crystal Programming Language

#44

Post by AKifer »

At first look, I like it. Would be great if we can build a ruby-to-crystal bridge so all the ruby goodness can run on top of it without requiring programmers to learn a whole new language. No GIL, faster than ruby but syntactically close enough, the dream.

Re: The Crystal Programming Language

#45

Post by vanderZwan »

asterite wrote: post #37
raindev wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, Maybe (Optional) is the way to go. The difference is, with nil you basically make every type optional allowing it to have nil as a value.

Well, in Crystal Nil is a separate type that can be combined with others. But, say, a String is always a String, it doesn't implicitly have the Nil type. Same goes with every other type. Maybe you are thinking of Java/C#, where reference types can also be null, but this is not true in Crystal. It's also in a way similar (but not quite) to Swift, where optional types are different than types that can't be null.

Do you have a technical write-up of how Crystal does that? Or otherwise some links/papers that explain the principle in a language accessible for someone who is basically self-taught and lacks a formal CompSci education?

Re: The Crystal Programming Language

#46

Post by sergiotapia »

I'm looking for something beautiful like Ruby but fast like Go. Do you think Crystal fits this bill?

Also, are there packages/libs/gems for Crystal? What are they called? What do I google for?

One of the major reasons why I dumped Go is that it's just too verbose and makes me write too much boilerplate code. I want to sort a collection and I have to write the same algorithm every single time for every single type. It's just boring and my time could be better spent elsewhere.

I appreciate the feedback HN!

Re: The Crystal Programming Language

#47

Post by seunosewa »

sergiotapia wrote: post #46

I'm looking for something beautiful like Ruby but fast like Go. Do you think Crystal fits this bill? Also, are there packages/libs/gems for Crystal? What are they called? What do I google for? One of the major reasons why I dumped Go is that it's just too verbose and makes me write too much boilerplate code. I want to sort a collection and I have to write the same algorithm every single time for every single type. It…

You're looking for Scala. The "good parts".

Re: The Crystal Programming Language

#48

Post by ezdiy »

AKifer wrote: post #44

At first look, I like it. Would be great if we can build a ruby-to-crystal bridge so all the ruby goodness can run on top of it without requiring programmers to learn a whole new language. No GIL, faster than ruby but syntactically close enough, the dream.

Current channels implementation uses fibers, ie everything runs on single thread and only stack is switched. There is no GIL.

If you want true multithreading, simply use pthreads like you would in C. Just make sure to mark gc roots of new thread stacks (gc is thread aware). But this also comes with a lot of headaches as you're now responsible to synchronize everything and manage mutexes by hand.

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