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Big Programming, Small Programming – Glow, the language

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Re: Big Programming, Small Programming – Glow, the language

#61

Post by acjohnson55 »

If the syntax ends up being a great match for your ideas, I've got a lot to look forward to! Syntax is a big aspect of how much or little I enjoy working with a language. I'm hoping for something Python-ish in terms of simplicity and readability, but I think there's room to improve upon even that.

I'm very happy to not see much redundant punctuation where formatting makes meaning clear, and to not see keywords where punctuation makes meaning clear. But since mutability is being deemphasized, maybe we can even get a single equals for equality, and give assignment the longer symbol?

Re: Big Programming, Small Programming – Glow, the language

#62

Post by dscrd »

tinco wrote: post #19

The syntax looks very pretty, but why the colons at the end of block header statements? Python does this too, but I see no reason for it. In my opinion that makes it look a bit cluttered, contrast it for example with the (excellent) coffeescript syntax.

Colon + indentation is actually the most natural way to signify a block that I have ever seen. Pretty, non-cluttering and sort of light for the eyes. And it's not without precedent: it resembles how colon is used in text.

Re: Big Programming, Small Programming – Glow, the language

#63

Post by evincarofautumn »

d0m wrote: post #59
ajanuary wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding of the idea behind most APL style languages is that it's an expert language, in that you need to take the time to invest in it just like a musician would musical notation. Once you've done that, the theory is that it is actually quicker and easier to grasp than reading "verbose" lines of code. That said, I've never taken the time to invest in an APL style language, so I can't speak to whether it is a…

Makes sense. If you spend enough time it can become second nature, like musical sheets. Still, I find that musical notations is way more limited, so it makes sense to have it concise. But let say people were naming some parts of the songs, and referring to it, and you had to jump and "get into the mind" of the person who wrote it.. than maybe it'd be a different story and more verbosity would be better.

APL/J/K code is really like mathematics, something that most programmers aren’t exposed to in the slightest. If you don’t grok it immediately, then you can actually just sit down and equationally work out the author’s exact thinking, in precise terms—and you level up as a side effect, so you don’t need to work out the same patterns every time you see them. That’s nigh impossible in C++!

Take it from someone who has seen both sides: the concision is a good, good thing.

Re: Big Programming, Small Programming – Glow, the language

#64

Post by daivd »

acjohnson55 wrote: post #61

If the syntax ends up being a great match for your ideas, I've got a lot to look forward to! Syntax is a big aspect of how much or little I enjoy working with a language. I'm hoping for something Python-ish in terms of simplicity and readability, but I think there's room to improve upon even that. I'm very happy to not see much redundant punctuation where formatting makes meaning clear, and to not see keywords where…

I agree that syntax is more important than us "rational" programmers like to let on. The syntax will be similar to Python, but nothing fantastic.

I think switching the usual meaning of = and == will be confusing. O'Caml uses = and == for deep and shallow comparison respectively and <- for assignment. That is a possibility.

Re: Big Programming, Small Programming – Glow, the language

#65

Post by TheZenPsycho »

jamii wrote: post #15

This idea - having locally unrestricted components connected by a restricted, declarative system - seems to keep popping up and never quite taking off. Hopefully sooner or later someone will spin it just right. Some related projects: Opis - http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.167.... - pure functions connected by dataflow combinators (with time travel debugging and model checking at the dataflow l…

Found another one.

http://meemoo.org

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