Show HN: My "weekend" project, an ML dialect and compiler

http://texodus.github.com/formal/

by texodus • 14 years ago

68 13 14 years ago

texodus.github.com

radarsat1• 14 years ago

This looks nice, I look forward to more discussion on it. Another hard-to-google progamming language name though :(

ludicast2• 14 years ago

Beautiful language, congratulations.

- Pattern matching is a sexy feature that is way needed in compile to JS languages

- Using an actual lambda character is way badass.

- Same goes for the inbuilt PhantomJS & Closure support

- I like these cute type definitions: (Num | String) -> String.

- Tail recursion f-yeah

- I agree with other poster about "hard to google". Not to be a "backseat brander", but something like forml has the ML in there as a shoutout as well as being easier to find.

- I like that even though you are compile-to-JS, you are not "of" JS. Pragmatic, yet forward-thinking.

Do you see take any hints/inspiration from other coffescript compilers (livescript, icedcoffeescript, contracts, etc.)? I do like how livescript has a standard prelude and you might want to consider that [edit: on closer read, just saw you do have a prelude. F-yeah again].

Also, does implementing lazy/infinite lists/functions seem possible to you or is that a giant undertaking? [edit: again on read another doc, just saw you do have infinite sequences, so congrats on the completeness of your language.]

texodus3• 14 years ago

Thanks for the feedback!

Forml is an awesome name! Mind if I potentially steal this idea?

ludicast2• 14 years ago

Feel free. Look forward to seeing how this language progresses. Seems to have elements of all my faves.

andrewcooke• 14 years ago

cool. it looks like you've cleaned up the verbose syntax? what are you planning on adding that's new? do you support the whole module/interface hoohaa from sml? are you going to explore (given js target) prototype-based oo in some way? are you thinking of pulling in ideas from ocaml? or some cool new type hackery from haskell?

texodus3• 14 years ago

I think the parameterized modules would be nice, and a natural extension since modules as implemented are technically "first class" - but I'm intentionally shying away from Haskell-level type checking. Ultimately, I'd like the type system to be more of a tool for preventing bugs, rather than a requirement to "prove" that your code is correct.

No current plans for any compiler level prototyping, but some of this could be accomplished via the existing type system - it would be nice to have some sort of record field unification/discrimination at the type level, to allow you to do something like `{ fields_1 } -> {fields_2 } -> { fields_1 && fields_2 }`, but I haven't thought this through entirely yet. Thanks for the feedback!

Oenotria• 14 years ago

Looks nice!

lucian1900• 14 years ago

The language looks nice, but this page is so extremely hard to read. Very light grey text on white background doesn't work.

ajb• 14 years ago

Yeah. (What happened to "page style" ->none in firefox?)

z3phyr• 14 years ago

Great Work!!!

huhtenberg• 14 years ago

Can you darken the text color to something like #444? Light weight of Lato in #777 is rather unreadable on Windows.

rustc• 14 years ago

Did you really write this in "one" weekend?

Excellent work!

Would you mind posting about how someone would go about getting from a "medium beginner" Haskell knowledge to implementing something like this?

texodus3• 14 years ago

Not even close to one weekend - I meant "weekend" in the tongue-in-cheek sense that all good weekend hacks spill over into multiple years.

[Write yourself a scheme in 48 hours](http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Write_Yourself_a_Scheme_in_48_H...) was very helpful for seeing a compile interpreter at a high level, [Typing Haskell in Haskell](http://web.cecs.pdx.edu/~mpj/thih/) was a fantastic resource for implementing DHM - the NYC Haskell community was fantasically helpful as well. Best way to learn anything in Haskell, or any language IMO, is to just start writing it :)

Show HN: My "weekend" project, an ML dialect and compiler

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