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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

#81

Post by poulpy123 »

jibal wrote: post #49
poulpy123 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

For Pony in particular, the syntax is not important ... it's simply not the point of the language.

If the syntax is not important, that would mean coding in whitespace or malboge would be as easy as coding in python

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

#83

Post by gpderetta »

BlanketLogic wrote: post #75
gpderetta wrote: post #71

> Deadlock-Free: This one is easy because Pony has no locks at all! So they definitely don’t deadlock, because they don’t exist! This really annoys me every time I read Pony description. What does deadlock free even mean here? Deadlock-free is typically the property of an algorithm, not a language. Does pony guarantees forward progress in all cases? Does it means that if I tried to implement a python interpreter in P…

It is based on actors and "reference capabilities". These two blogs[1,2], could provide nice introduction. 1. https://blog.jtfmumm.com//2016/03/06/safely-sharing-data-pon... 2. https://bluishcoder.co.nz/2017/07/31/reference_capabilities_...

That's quite interesting, but it doesn't answer the question: Would the python program running on an interpreter written in pony deadlock or not?

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

#84

Post by pjmlp »

CharlieDigital wrote: post #74
pjmlp wrote: post #45

Without wanting to derail the conversation too much. Its original designer, Sylvan Clebsch, is nowadays working at Microsoft Research on languages like Verona [0], the last paper he contributed to, which has Guido as well among the collaborators, is about adding regions to dynamic languages, using Python as example implementation, https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/dynamic... [0] - https://www.micro…

Notable the Microsoft has not one but two actor model "frameworks": Orleans (for .NET) and Dapr Actors (for containerized workloads).

Probably even more, most folks aren't aware of how many research is sponsored by Microsoft Research across all their university sites.

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

#85

Post by throwaway328 »

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 enthusiasts here seem to be getting quite worked up over how inaccessible the code examples are. 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.

If a member of the Pony team sees this: even though it's more than a tad ridiculous and you have in fact made a lovely website with loads of clear information, maybe consider adding the "Try it in your browser" link as another option in the burger menu thing on the left. That way it follows everyone around, and you never have to suffer a HN discussion getting needlessly derailed by the resident PL fanatics.

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

#86

Post by threatofrain »

pjmlp wrote: post #45

Without wanting to derail the conversation too much. Its original designer, Sylvan Clebsch, is nowadays working at Microsoft Research on languages like Verona [0], the last paper he contributed to, which has Guido as well among the collaborators, is about adding regions to dynamic languages, using Python as example implementation, https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/dynamic... [0] - https://www.micro…

Is Verona still receiving attention? Seems like a quiet project.

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

#87

Post by jibal »

poulpy123 wrote: post #81
jibal wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For Pony in particular, the syntax is not important ... it's simply not the point of the language.

If the syntax is not important, that would mean coding in whitespace or malboge would be as easy as coding in python

[flagged]

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

#88

Post by brap »

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

Unfortunately this is true for basically any kind of “product”.

It’s crazy how many people build something and make a website for it, only to hide the thing they’ve built somewhere deep in the website. Just show me the damn thing!

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

#89

Post by pjmlp »

threatofrain wrote: post #86
pjmlp wrote: post #45

Without wanting to derail the conversation too much. Its original designer, Sylvan Clebsch, is nowadays working at Microsoft Research on languages like Verona [0], the last paper he contributed to, which has Guido as well among the collaborators, is about adding regions to dynamic languages, using Python as example implementation, https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/dynamic... [0] - https://www.micro…

Is Verona still receiving attention? Seems like a quiet project.

The paper I mentioned, is also done as part of Verona project

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/project/project-ver...

Maybe they are now mostly behind MS walls, or have indeed decided to look elsewhere for their research goals.

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

#90

Post by gwd »

If you want to dive right into what seems like the first key "interesting" idea, it's here:

https://tutorial.ponylang.io/types/actors

If you know a few programming languages I think you should be able to guess what the syntax does from context.

And then the next key idea is here:

https://tutorial.ponylang.io/reference-capabilities/referenc...

(Although I think the first actual interesting I idea I saw was "Destructive read" under https://tutorial.ponylang.io/types/classes#functions , but that's clearly just an isolated quirk, not part of the core idea of the language.)

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