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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

#91

Post by johnisgood »

voidUpdate wrote: post #50
nallerooth wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Nim has a good homepage, with some bullet points explaining what the language is all about coupled with several code examples. I'm not saying Nim is better, but I visited the page the other day and thought it was neat. https://nim-lang.org/

Yeah, that's exactly the thing I'd hope to see on anything trying to sell me on using a new language. Tell me about what it does, and show me how it does it

Yeah I think Nim's website is well-made. You can see the features / pros of the language, with many different (and IMO cool) examples.

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

#92

Post by jeltz »

jibal wrote: post #87
poulpy123 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

[flagged]

Then make your arguments instead of making us try to read your mind. Why is Pony special?

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

#93

Post by johnisgood »

notfed wrote: post #31
Timwi wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, I get it. The document wants to tell you what's new and different under the hood, not what the language looks like superficially. Code examples don't actually tell you what the language feels like in production. It's kinda like judging a person's character by how they dress. I would be torn if I had to write intro documentation like this. On the one hand, people demand code examples, but on the other hand,…

> people reading code examples will nitpick minor pet peeves in the syntax and completely detract from the actual news ideas and concepts Err, ok, so? Don't be so afraid of criticism, I guess? Yeah, some people will nitpick. I don't see the problem.

I think the emphasis should be on "nitpick" and "detract". Syntax is important, but they want people to focus on the fundamental or underlying concepts instead of the syntax first. With regarding taking criticisms: I think the person posting this submission may not be associated with the language to begin with. I wonder if any Pony developers are even reading it. Just my 2 cents.

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

#94

Post by 1980phipsi »

nallerooth wrote: post #39
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 think Nim has a good homepage, with some bullet points explaining what the language is all about coupled with several code examples. I'm not saying Nim is better, but I visited the page the other day and thought it was neat. https://nim-lang.org/

The D language home page has something similar with a drop down with code examples

https://dlang.org/

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

#95

Post by arethuza »

jeltz wrote: post #92
jibal wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Then make your arguments instead of making us try to read your mind. Why is Pony special?

See: https://www.ponylang.io/discover/why-pony/

I don't think that Pony is claiming to be novel in the area of syntax?

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

#97

Post by guiriduro »

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).

The .NET ecosystem itself has another mature actor-based framework in Akka.NET, being probably closest to the Erlang/Elixir supervisor style, in C#/F#.

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

#98

Post by gr4vityWall »

Timwi wrote: post #17
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

Honestly, I get it. The document wants to tell you what's new and different under the hood, not what the language looks like superficially. Code examples don't actually tell you what the language feels like in production. It's kinda like judging a person's character by how they dress. I would be torn if I had to write intro documentation like this. On the one hand, people demand code examples, but on the other hand,…

> the majority of people reading code examples will nitpick minor pet peeves in the syntax and completely detract from the actual new ideas and concepts that go way beyond just the syntax

I believe that, regardless of our personal preferences, the reality is that syntax is a major criteria for adopting a programming language.

Some people have trouble following Lisp code, and won't touch your project if it looks like chat. Others will have the opposite reaction and have their interest captured instead.

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

#99

Post by swiftcoder »

archerx wrote: post #21
Timwi wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, I get it. The document wants to tell you what's new and different under the hood, not what the language looks like superficially. Code examples don't actually tell you what the language feels like in production. It's kinda like judging a person's character by how they dress. I would be torn if I had to write intro documentation like this. On the one hand, people demand code examples, but on the other hand,…

Yea but the syntax looks like a mix of Python and JavaScript. By just seeing that I know I don’t want to use it, by seeing the code up front I know that I don’t want to keep reading what ever rationalizations they have to justify the existence of this language. So by seeing the syntax up front I can save a lot of time because in a world where there are many languages that do the same thing it really boils down to usi…

> in a world where there are many languages that do the same thing it really boils down to using the one with the syntax that you like the most

Wat? If all languages were just syntax re-skinning, we really wouldn't need more than one compiler backend...

Generally the semantic differences are much more important. Rust isn't interesting for its syntax, it's interesting for its ownership rules and borrow checker. Erlang isn't interesting because of its syntax, it's interesting for its actor model concurrency. And so on...

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