Programming Languages

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This is the current Lemmy equivalent of https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammingLanguages/.

The content and rules are the same here as they are over there. Taken directly from the /r/ProgrammingLanguages overview:

This community is dedicated to the theory, design and implementation of programming languages.

Be nice to each other. Flame wars and rants are not welcomed. Please also put some effort into your post.

This isn't the right place to ask questions such as "What language should I use for X", "what language should I learn", and "what's your favorite language". Such questions should be posted in /c/learn_programming or /c/programming.

This is the right place for posts like the following:

"Check out this new language I've been working on!"
"Here's a blog post on how I implemented static type checking into this compiler"
"I want to write a compiler, where do I start?"
"How does the Java compiler work? How does it handle forward declarations/imports/targeting multiple platforms/?"
"How should I test my compiler? How are other compilers and interpreters like gcc, Java, and python tested?"
"What are the pros/cons of ?"
"Compare and contrast vs. "
"Confused about the semantics of this language"
"Proceedings from PLDI / OOPSLA / ICFP / "

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armchair_progamer@programming.dev

Simple Programming Languages (ryanbrewer.dev)

submitted 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) by armchair_progamer@programming.dev to c/programming_languages@programming.dev

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In this post I want to make this kind of simplicity more precise and talk about some reasons it's important. I propose five key ideas for simple programming languages: ready-at-hand features, fast iteration cycles, a single way of doing things, first-order reasoning principles, and simple static type systems. I discuss each of these at length below.

Aside: simplicity in languages is interesting. I'd say most popular languages, from Rust and Haskell to Python and JavaScript, are not simple. Popular PL research topics, such as linear types and effect systems, are also not simple (I suppose all the simple concepts have already been done over and over).

Making a simple language which is also practical requires a careful selection of features: powerful enough to cover all of the language's possible use-cases, but not too powerful that they encourage over-engineered or unnecessarily-clever (hard-to-understand) solutions (e.g. metaprogramming). The simplest languages tend to be DSLs with very specific use-cases, and the least simple ones tend to have so much complexity, people write simpler DSLs in them. But then, many simple DSLs become complex in aggregate, to implement and to learn...so once again, it's a balance of "which features have the broadest use-cases while remaining easy to reason about"?

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[–] Hector_McG@programming.dev 4 points 7 months ago (1 children)

The machine itself can generally only do very simple things

That really hasn't been true for at least 2 decades. And nowadays assembly code is no more that another abstraction layer, as microcode in the processor becomes increasingly complex. It's as out-of-date an idea as the idea that C code is 'close to the metal'.

[–] BatmanAoD@programming.dev 1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

I should have said "relatively simple", not "very simple". Yes, modern assembly instructions can often be relatively complex (though not on all architectures). But the point is that every abstraction layer presents a simpler API compared to what's below, but must be implemented in terms of complex combinations of the fundamentally simple units of functionality in the layer below it. This is true of assembly, yes, but that doesn't make it less true of higher level languages.