Abstract for my talk at Emerging Languages Camp:<\/p>\n
We cannot evolve beyond imperative programming until we solve the problem of coordinating changes to state. Functional programming and transactions segregate the problem, but don’t solve it. I am exploring a new kind of language, inspired by modern “Model-View-Binding” application frameworks. The language uses bidirectional data binding as its fundamental mechanism, generalized into arbitrary change-triggered actions. Bindings propagate changes coherently<\/em>: execution order is determined automatically based on the interdependencies between bindings. The programmer does not have to worry about execution order. A side benefit is the automatic discovery of parallelism. Unfortunately coherence doesn’t work in a conventional heap of objects with arbitrary dynamic pointers to each other. I propose a data model in which objects and collections of objects are nested to form trees. Pointers are replaced with cursors <\/em>constrained within a collection. This richer structure permits coherent and deterministic execution of bindings. Coherent binding offers the simplicity of declarative programming while maintaining complex dynamic state.<\/p>\n Comments? The idea is to use data binding as a metaphor that many programmers are already familiar with. Can I assume people will get what “Model-View-Binding” is, even though I just invented the term?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Abstract for my talk at Emerging Languages Camp: We cannot evolve beyond imperative programming until we solve the problem of coordinating changes to state. Functional programming and transactions segregate the problem, but don’t solve it. I am exploring a new kind of language, inspired by modern “Model-View-Binding” application frameworks. The language uses bidirectional data binding … <\/p>\n