{"id":578,"date":"2011-05-04T09:28:48","date_gmt":"2011-05-04T14:28:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/alarmingdevelopment.org\/?p=578"},"modified":"2011-05-04T09:28:48","modified_gmt":"2011-05-04T14:28:48","slug":"its-a-good-day-to-code","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alarmingdevelopment.org\/?p=578","title":{"rendered":"It’s a good day to code"},"content":{"rendered":"

We have ignition: an actual implementation of an actual language. Toy-like in the extreme, but it can run the sorts of simple examples I have been discussing the last few years. I think I can take it all the way to a prototype application framework. This is huge progress.
\n<\/p>\n

For me, the breakthrough has been finding ways to avoid solving problems. I was paralyzed for years by deep issues in the semantics of effects. I came to realize that settling these issues required first getting getting practical experience with this new style of programming. A chicken-and-egg dillema. The solution was to defer everything I could and go with the simplest thing that could possibly work. So for example I have totally punted on types, and my effect system is computed on the fly at run-time. A compile-time effect system will be essential eventually, and I can’t yet guarantee that it is actually possible, but I don’t need it right now to build a working prototype.<\/p>\n

Java has worked out great. I can code in it practically without thinking, which is a good thing, because the problem I am solving already stretches my old brain past its limits. Likewise with language processing tools – I considered Stratego and Antlr, but ended up with parboiled <\/a>. It is a really nicely done lightweight parsing library, with great Java support through bytecode rewriting magic. The compiler probably would have been a third the size in Scala, but at under a thousand lines it doesn’t matter.<\/p>\n

I am going to keep coding until I can demo an actual application. I didn’t submit an Onward paper because I am burnt out on papers talking about what I want to do in the future. My next paper will be about what I have already done. I will probably submit a demo to OOPSLA. I am doing a talk at the beginning of June, and I’ll post the slides here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We have ignition: an actual implementation of an actual language. Toy-like in the extreme, but it can run the sorts of simple examples I have been discussing the last few years. I think I can take it all the way to a prototype application framework. This is huge progress.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-578","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pfEnU-9k","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alarmingdevelopment.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/578","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alarmingdevelopment.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alarmingdevelopment.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alarmingdevelopment.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alarmingdevelopment.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=578"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/alarmingdevelopment.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/578\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":582,"href":"https:\/\/alarmingdevelopment.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/578\/revisions\/582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alarmingdevelopment.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alarmingdevelopment.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alarmingdevelopment.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}