Tasty » Adam Sampson's language-design bookmarks

A nice, little known C feature: Static array indices in parameter declarations edit / delete

"void bar(int myArray[static 10]);" On the other hand, compilers that actually do something useful with this are rare. And the syntax is pretty horrible -- especially when you're using it to indicate a non-NULL pointer.

to c language-design safety ... on 10 February 2017

Kednos PL/I edit / delete

Commercial PL/I compiler for VMS, but with a very comprehensive reference manual; this was useful in understanding the Multics PL/I code.

to compiler language-design pli vms ... on 10 February 2017

PortablE edit / delete

An E compiler implemented as a translator to C++. This extends the language a bit too (in particular, adding a better type system).

to amiga c++ compiler e language-design ... on 10 December 2016

szl edit / delete

A "better Tcl" language (i.e. something that sits in roughly the shell space, but is actually a real programming language with exceptions, etc.) The simplicity is interesting.

to language-design shell szl tcl ... on 06 December 2016

SMLFamily/Successor-ML: A version of the 1997 SML definition with corrections and some proposed Successor ML features added. edit / delete

A tasteful update of 90s-era Standard ML. (Wish they'd fix the horrible equality types hack, though!)

to functional language-design ml standard-ml ... on 18 October 2016

KRC homepage edit / delete

David Turner's forerunner to Miranda (and hence Haskell's grandparent) -- a neat little functional language. The implementation here is terrifying: EMAS BCPL ported to C in the style of Bournegol!

to bcpl c emas functional kent krc language-design retrocomputing turner ... on 14 October 2016

Wouter's Wiki : Lobster edit / delete

This is a really interesting language design -- in particular, it has precisely the syntax I was looking for. It's a pity that the type system is kind of half-arsed, and the standard implementation is pretty limited... I wonder if it'd be possible to throw this syntax on top of OCaml?

to language-design lobster ... on 14 October 2016

Haskell's Type Classes: We Can Do Better – John A De Goes edit / delete

Reasons for wanting first-class typeclasses. Personally I'd just settle for having Haskell-style typeclasses in a language I could actually use for real work...

to haskell language-design typeclass ... on 14 October 2016

C++11 FAQ edit / delete

Bjarne Stroustrup's frequently asked questions on C++11 (and later) features -- so lots of interesting detail about why particular design choices were made.

to c++ c++11 language-design ... on 14 October 2016

F# syntax: indentation and verbosity | F# for fun and profit edit / delete

This is a more useful description of how F#'s indentation-based syntax works than the manual.

to f language-design ocaml syntax ... on 14 October 2016