The Zimbu programming language

http://www.zimbu.org/

by mbrubeck • 17 years ago

47 51 17 years ago

Janzert• 17 years ago

Ouch, unbalanced curly brackets to end blocks? Maybe it's something like significant indentation (python) that will become natural once used. On first presentation though it sure seems scary.

mnemonik• 17 years ago

I actually thought that was the neatest thing about this proposed language. I didn't get too excited about any of the design goals, but regarding syntax, this seems pretty original.

It allows for less syntax, which is a win for readability and also less boilerplate tokens, but still gives you a little freedom to mess with your indentation, unlike python. It means that (true) lambdas wouldn't be a syntactical enigma like they would be in python.

I don't think that you would need to use "}" to end a block though, since it looks like its missing the opening bracket, but maybe double semicolons would work, since they apparently aren't used elsewhere:

    MAIN()
      IO.write("Hello, World!\n")
    ;;

To be honest, the syntax that I have found to be nicest on the eyes so far has been Io:

    whois := method(host,
        socket := Socket clone setHostName("rs.internic.net") setPort(43) 
        socket connect streamWrite(host, "\n")
        while(socket streamReadNextChunk, nil)
        return socket readBuffer
    )

taken from http://www.iolanguage.com/scm/git/checkout/Io/docs/IoGuide.h...

bham• 17 years ago

Io is an absolute joy. It's too slow to be practical but that's my personal bent. Not everything has to be practical of course.

eru4• 17 years ago

`True lambdas' are overrated. The Python way is just fine. If you want to do anything that needs two lines, you are probably doing something complicated enough that this function deserves its own name.

gcb2• 17 years ago

Probably what everyone said about python's indentation syntax.

I like both approaches. it's better then having useless {. In some cases improve readability over python lack of marks. and risking mod down by the audience we have here, it's (much (better then (the gratuitous use of (parenthesis in lisp)))))

icey• 17 years ago

  how (
      is {
           this();
          }
      any();
      better(
               than[$parenthesis]
             );
      );

?

mbrubeck2• 17 years ago

I agree that the choice of "}" makes this seem weirder than it needs to. Something that doesn't "look" unbalanced would be better. What about "end" (like in Ruby but with no "begin")? It may be longer, but I actually find it easier/faster to type than a curly brace...

ajb• 17 years ago

That reminds me of CPL, which used the section symbol (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_sign).

tetha• 17 years ago

Uh... so exactly why should I stop using C, Python or Java (which are mature, distributed and have a lot of libraries) for a language which does not offer advanced new features, about no libraries and also features some... akward syntax? (Don't get me wrong, I can live with syntax with is not C-like, or python-like, but unbalanced braces are certainly just akward).

Daniel_Newby• 17 years ago

This new language's designer makes the Vim text editor, a lovely editor with a ... regrettable scripting language.

albemuth• 17 years ago

Read the article, he explains why.

tebeka• 17 years ago

As much as I love Vim (and I use it all the time), I truly hate it's scripting language. I think Bram devote his time to improve VIm.

gcb2• 17 years ago

> I think Bram devote his time to improve VIm.

vimim

donaldc• 17 years ago

Perhaps Bram could devote his time to improving vim's scripting language.

Kototama• 17 years ago

It has to be as fast as possible, so interpreted languages are out. You don't want to micro manage memory, so C is out. You don't want to require programmers to have a degree, so C++ is out. You want fast startup and not depend on a big runtime, so Java is out. It has to run on most systems, anything with a C compiler, so D is out. You want to have fun making something new.

If you remove his last requirement I think lof of languages still qualify. Effeil for instance, and maybe OCaml.

mbrubeck2• 17 years ago

I can understand why Bram wants to target C. Vim runs on almost every operating system and architecture. Right now that's only really possible with C-targeted languages, languages with portable VMs/intepreters written in C, and (to a slightly lesser extent) C++.

jcl• 17 years ago

I think making the keywords all-caps is a mistake. Capital letters draw the eye -- all-caps doubly so, and at the expense of readability.

Anything in all-caps had better be pretty damn important for the programmer to read. And while keywords are vital to the compiler's understanding of the program, they are arguably among the least important text for the programmer to read, as they can generally be inferred from visual length, placement, and formatting.

mapleoin• 17 years ago

don't forget syntax highlighting

raganwald• 17 years ago

Keywords are punctuation for programs. Keywords in capitals are shouting the punctuation out instead of the words. So just as you say, keywords in capitals are the equivalent of you writing:

I think making the keywords all DASH caps is a mistake PERIOD Capital letters draw the eye EMDASH all DASH caps doubly so COMMA and at the expense of readability PERIOD

rick_2047• 17 years ago

also small caps are harder to type its just tedious to change the case so often

omouse• 17 years ago

Ouch, it burns the eyes.

Zak3• 17 years ago

This doesn't really contribute anything. How about "I think the all-caps keywords and unmatched braces are ugly" or "parallelism should be considered a requirement in a new application language and highly-stateful Java-style OO doesn't really seem like a good way to accomplish that"?

eru4• 17 years ago

Thanks for giving good advise to a down-voted comment. I guess we should do that more often.

silentbicycle5• 17 years ago

    * It has to be as fast as possible, so interpreted languages are out.
    * You don't want to micro manage memory, so C is out.
    * You don't want to require programmers to have a degree, so C++ is out.
    * You want fast startup and not depend on a big runtime, so Java is out.
    * It has to run on most systems, anything with a C compiler, so D is out.
    * You want to have fun making something new.
    No existing language really meets these demands, so let's create a new one that does.

Actually, Lua meets every point except the last one...it's byte-compiled, garbage collected, refreshingly free of exceptions-to-exceptions-to-rules you have to memorize, it starts and compiles faster than many other major contenders start, it runs on literally anything with an ANSI C compiler, and it's been in production use for over 15 years.

I use Emacs, but a Lua-extended vi could be very nice.

Zak3• 17 years ago

Several Scheme implementations as well as some lesser-known small Lisps qualify.

I think writing a new general-purpose language is something every programmer should try at least once, but don't fool yourself; there's probably an existing language that does what you want.

Now, back to work on that language idea I can't get out of my head involving pervasive generic functions....

wingo• 17 years ago

I would like that language.

(I say, as I work on getting compute-effective-method working in Guile...)

kingkongreveng_• 17 years ago

chicken scheme is the only other language I can think of that compiles to C code.

He is not making an interpreted language. It compiles down to machine code that runs directly; not vm bytecode.

aaronblohowiak2• 17 years ago

You mean, like http://code.google.com/p/textadept/ ?

silentbicycle5• 17 years ago

Well, if I ran the zoo, it would be retargetable to multiple graphic modes (I'm going to be running it in ssh+tmux half the time, so I'd prefer curses) and have a mix of vi's modal keybinding style and Emacs's buffer/mark ring/etc. model and extensibility.

Then again, with 2k loc, it shouldn't be that hard to break out the GTK...

UI model nonwithstanding, that's exactly the sort of project that Lua is designed for.

etal• 17 years ago

From the description, it seems like this project has the same goals as Gnome's new language, Vala:

http://live.gnome.org/Vala

Given the syntax choices, the main advantage I see in Zimbu is that creating a new language is more fun than porting an existing one.

CptMauli• 17 years ago

For me the goals of zimbu look very much like the ones of ooc (it was mentioned a few days ago http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=882864) and ooc looks much nicer than zimbu.

daeken• 17 years ago

I'm really impressed that Boo is mentioned as an influence. Don't see the ideas there, but I'm glad to see it spreading in some way.

DanielStraight• 17 years ago

As fast as possible is premature optimization in most cases. Python still wins.

gcanyon• 17 years ago

"Suppose you want to write a new program, something like a text editor."

Then I open up the GUI builder for almost any language, throw a pre-built text box in place, and press compile. Next?

Not arguing against the language itself. It's just that using "text editor" as a use case is about as descriptive as starting with "Suppose you want to write 'Hello World.'" It doesn't tell you anything about what the actual requirements are. Compiled isn't necessary to build a text editor. Java isn't excluded. Etc.

PieSquared• 17 years ago

While you are right that a text-box is a bad example of a programming language, what he is talking about is a text editor.

A text box is not a text editor. After all, take a look at Vim or Emacs. They have their own languages, syntax highlighters, language analysis tools, GUI and ncurses tools, etc... A goodtext editor is a huge piece of software - millions of lines of code (I think), perhaps, in the case of Emacs.

Although I do agree with you - good examples are important.

psadauskas• 17 years ago

From the inspirations page (http://www.zimbu.org/design/inspiration), he's "avoiding" on of the best features of ruby:

  Avoid:
    * expression by itself is return value, causes mistakes.

silentbicycle5• 17 years ago

This has a massive impact on the language semantics, and should not be decided lightly - it strongly pushes it towards nested statements, rather than imperative steps with a result. Not as clear a distinction as pure functional vs. imperative, but with much of the same design baggage.

utku_karatas2• 17 years ago

If you appreciate the goals and design rationale of this language you should check out freepascal (http://www.freepascal.org) which fulfills similar needs and is mature with an active community.

redsymbol• 17 years ago

Moolenaar is one of my biggest heroes in the software world. He created a tool (vim) that is probably on the short list of great free software... one that has catalyzed the creation of so many other tools. And he did it in the name of charity, to raise money for a children's clinic in Uganda.

If I end up having one tenth of the positive influence on the world as this fellow has already done, I'll count my life successful.

The Zimbu programming language

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