Ask HN: Where are the unit-typed languages?

#1

Post by univacky » Fri, Sep 13, 2019, 1:08 PM UTC

Are there any programming languages that treat, say, numbers like adjectives, as human languages do, and have units typing?

Instead of an integer being a standalone noun, "5", it would be "5 apples", or "5 meters/second". Multiplying a variable of 3 meters/second by a variable of 2 minutes could give a result of 180 meters, and adding nautical miles to dollars would give an exception. I've played around with this idea a little bit in objects, but it seems like a language with such features built in or an object library should already exist somewhere.

Re: Ask HN: Where are the unit-typed languages?

#2

Post by kognate » Fri, Sep 13, 2019, 1:17 PM UTC

You can do this sort of thing with Ada's type system. There is also a blog post about units of measure in F# https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/andrewkennedy/2008/08/29/un...

It's a pretty niche topic. You can do this in a language like c++ or even python but unit aware calculations aren't a requirement for a lot of systems.

Re: Ask HN: Where are the unit-typed languages?

#3

Post by blandflakes » Fri, Sep 13, 2019, 2:34 PM UTC

Have you seen https://frinklang.org/ ? I think that's supposed to be its Big Idea.