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Pony: An actor-model, capabilities-secure, high-performance programming language

ponylang.io

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Re: Pony: An actor-model, capabilities-secure, high-performance programming language

#191

Post by shiomiru »

maleldil wrote: post #167
whalesalad wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nim feels like the perfect language to me. Keep meaning to give it a shot for something.

The way it handles imports is weird. Default to importing everything from the module without qualification? I know you can choose to qualify everything, but that seems to go against the language's conventions.

Nim's import rules are part of its generalization of OOP's obj.foo() syntax. That is, in Nim, you don't have to put "foo" in a specific class, just set the first parameter of "foo" to the type of "obj", and this only works if you don't have to qualify "foo" (similarly to OOP languages...)

Re: Pony: An actor-model, capabilities-secure, high-performance programming language

#192

Post by zem »

poulpy123 wrote: post #44
jibal wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The syntax is the least interesting thing about the language, and hello-world examples demonstrate almost none of the syntax. This bit from the About page is notable: "never write a programming language. That’s like rule #1. Everybody will just tell you it isn’t needed and then argue about syntax."

> The syntax is the least interesting thing about the language, and hello-world examples demonstrate almost none of the syntax. I agree for the hello world but I disagree with the syntax. It is the first thing you see and the characteristic you can never escape. It is like the layout and typesetting of a text: the substance is of course more important, but it is still very important. I personally find much more reada…

the way i like to put it is that the syntax is the user interface of the language. if your user interface sucks, your product will not be pleasant to use, no matter how capable it is.

Re: Pony: An actor-model, capabilities-secure, high-performance programming language

#193

Post by jbritton »

voidUpdate wrote: post #3

I wish these language websites would put an example of some code right there on the homepage so I can see what the language "feels" like. I finally found some code in the tutorials https://tutorial.ponylang.io/getting-started/hello-world

I see this comment on all language postings and I just don’t get it. I’m much more curious about the motivation behind the language. If the syntax was that of APL, Forth, or Prolog would you just instantly ignore it because it doesn’t look like Java. I think if the language motivation is compelling then you can decide to dive into a tutorial where the syntax will be explained step by step. I don’t see how syntax can be judged before it is understood. Do you accept/reject languages over simple syntax like curly braces vs begin/end or significant white space, or abbreviations you don’t like eg. def, fun, defun, function, procedure.

Re: Pony: An actor-model, capabilities-secure, high-performance programming language

#194

Post by yuppiemephisto »

Tainnor wrote: post #170
Twirrim wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're talking from a position I don't think many would agree with, at all, and I think the responses you're getting are reflecting that. Syntax is probably one of the single most important things in any language. It matters for writing, but especially for reading. Bad syntax leads to all kinds of implementation mistakes. It comes with footguns primed ready to go off, probably at the worst possible time. Bad syntax c…

> Syntax is probably one of the single most important things in any language. It matters for writing, but especially for reading. That appears to be your position (and maybe even that of a majority of developers), but it apparently isn't the position of the Pony developers. If you have a language in which you can mathematically reason about code (which Pony claims very prominently), then surface concerns such as synt…

Lean 4 truly lets you mathematically reason about code and has metaprogramming that truly makes syntax a surface thing, but if anything people who know this have the taste to want better syntax

Re: Pony: An actor-model, capabilities-secure, high-performance programming language

#195

Post by thesz »

jbritton wrote: post #193
voidUpdate wrote: post #3

I wish these language websites would put an example of some code right there on the homepage so I can see what the language "feels" like. I finally found some code in the tutorials https://tutorial.ponylang.io/getting-started/hello-world

I see this comment on all language postings and I just don’t get it. I’m much more curious about the motivation behind the language. If the syntax was that of APL, Forth, or Prolog would you just instantly ignore it because it doesn’t look like Java. I think if the language motivation is compelling then you can decide to dive into a tutorial where the syntax will be explained step by step. I don’t see how syntax can…

Examples such as Hello, World! can tell you many things.

They can tell you whether language is statically typed or not, does it have an effect typing (it necessarily needs higher order types), does it have type inference, etc,

A syntax of one is semantic of other.

Re: Pony: An actor-model, capabilities-secure, high-performance programming language

#196

Post by vfclists »

> I wish these language websites would put an example of some code right there on the homepage so I can see what the language "feels" like. I finally found some code in the tutorials https://tutorial.ponylang.io/getting-started/hello-world

+ 85 replies

The usual HN post where the threads which are tangential to the topic always rise to the top.

How much irrelevant dross to readers have to read through before they get to comments on the actual product?

Time to sit back and see if this one will also rise to the top or somewhere near.

Re: Pony: An actor-model, capabilities-secure, high-performance programming language

#197

Post by Tainnor »

teiferer wrote: post #190
Tainnor wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not necessarily a fan of the original wording "shitty behaviour", but I do find it disappointing that half of the comment section is people complaining about the lack of code examples. It's just not very interesting feedback and makes the discussion worse.

And half those comments have been misinterpeted to literally mean code. More concrete illustrations of the concepts would have been nice. Not everybody is well versed in what Erlang-like actors are, or capabilities, and how they play so nicely in the single-threaded actors. I know what a thread is. I know what type safety is. But what in Pony make that? How is Pony different from other languages that provide these th…

I feel this comment is already much more constructive than your original one.

Btw I'm not affiliated with Pony in any way, so I have no influence on what and how things could be improved in the docs.

Re: Pony: An actor-model, capabilities-secure, high-performance programming language

#198

Post by Mawr »

jibal wrote: post #20
voidUpdate wrote: post #3

I wish these language websites would put an example of some code right there on the homepage so I can see what the language "feels" like. I finally found some code in the tutorials https://tutorial.ponylang.io/getting-started/hello-world

The syntax is the least interesting thing about the language, and hello-world examples demonstrate almost none of the syntax. This bit from the About page is notable: "never write a programming language. That’s like rule #1. Everybody will just tell you it isn’t needed and then argue about syntax."

The way a Ferrari looks is the least interesting part of it too. I still want to see the thing front and center on its homepage.

The syntax is the language. To show me the language you have to show me its syntax.

Re: Pony: An actor-model, capabilities-secure, high-performance programming language

#199

Post by Mawr »

throwaway328 wrote: post #85

Request to HN mods: that the link be changed from https://www.ponylang.io/discover/ to https://www.ponylang.io/ On the second link, as another commenter mentions, the "Try it in your browser" is one click away, near the top. On the first link, it's two clicks away, but the first of those clicks is a perhaps surprising backwards-lick to get back to the homepage... Unfortunately, many of the diehard language enthusiast…

> Instead of being able to immediately see the syntax so they can rush back here to make insightful and educated comments on how that syntax compares to $their_fave_lang, they are forced to spend up to 4 or even 5 minutes reading documents clearly describing the design of the language, and being obliged to click on their mouses up to 10 times even in some cases.

Welcome to interface design! Your way of thinking could not be more wrong if you tried :)

How buying stuff on say Amazon works:

1. Click on picture of a car

2. Click "Buy Now"

How it would look like if we apply yours/the Pony website designers' approach:

1. Read a 10 page description of what the car is

2. Click on a link buried on page 12 that lets you buy the thing

Which approach gets more sales?

Re: Pony: An actor-model, capabilities-secure, high-performance programming language

#200

Post by Alifatisk »

vova_hn wrote: post #159
Alifatisk wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was about to mention Dlangs website aswell, very well designed and clearly presents the language

I remember the first time I visited the DLang website. I clicked “What is D used for?” [0] and scrolled to the very first section, “1. Industry.” The opening example was “1. Games,” so naturally I went to read more…and found the first link, “AAA game,” was dead. It led straight to an error page on Xbox. That was years ago. After reading your comment, I decided to check again. The same “AAA game” link is still first,…

I guess you're referring to the official link to quantumbreak.com. No one has probably noticed or pointed it out yet, I do not know where to raise it since I am not a member of the fourm. But the next sentence links to the presentation about the Game (Quantumbreak) and it's integration with Dlang.

You are not wrong, that should be fixed but no information about it is lost, I feel like you're a bit too harsh here.

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