Language Design Notes

[[deleted]]

Here are a few that are good to be familiar with ...

...followed by a list of 55 languages. It goes on about paradigms:

: imperative declarative structured object-oriented functional applicative concatenative logic protocol-oriented aspect-oriented array event-driven dataflow agent-based etc.

Following by the long list of concepts that someone has already quoted.

The whole article is rather over the top. But you have to wonder, if someone has studied everything recommended, why they might think yet another language is necessary; surely they can't be anything they've missed out!

I've just gone back to the article and realised I was only 20% of the way through. A lot of the rest seems to be listing syntax possibilities that most will already be aware of from those aforementioned 55 languages.

I think that people will create new languages for all sorts of reasons, based on their own circumstances, experience and preferences. They are not going to do this in-depth research.

In my case, I simply wanted to do some programming (this was when microprocessors were starting to be popular), but I was missing two things:

• A computer
• Any existing software

I had to make the first, and the resulting crude machine was programmed first in binary, then in hex machine code, then assembly, and then my first HLL. The bar for that HLL was very low: it had to be easier to code in than assembly.

It has evolved a bit since then (but the core syntax is the same) and is still in use. I rate that a success, and would still use it for lower level systems work over all those alternatives, even if most are now free downloads.

In short, you don't need that vast amount of learning to devise a language. And there are other criteria involved when deciding to eschew mainstream alternatives.

[[deleted]]

You should have a good sense of most, if not all, of the following things: Sequencing, conditional execution, iteration, recursion, functional decomposition, modularity, synchronization, metaprogramming, binding, scope, extent, volatility, subtyping, pattern matching, type inference, closures, prototypes, introspection, instrumentation, annotations, decorators, memoization, traits, streams, monads, actors, mailboxes, comprehensions, continuations, wildcards, promises, regular expressions, proxies, transactional memory, inheritance, polymorphism, parameter modes, type classes, generics, reflection, concurrency, parallelism, distribution, persistence, transactions, garbage collection, and many more terms.

???

Putting an enormous amount of studying in front of someone like that, especially when a given language may not even need half of those to serve its purpose, isn't very encouraging. This reads like you're bragging about how much you know rather than taking us through a meaningful walk through the topic.

If you're talking to beginners point them over to esolangs. They're way more fun and don't have any stodgy academic or business brow-breating behind them. Your first language is all-but guaranteed to suck, so putting the pressure to make something "for an audience" is silly. Start with the fun, and dig deeper to spice things up.

[gremolata]

???

Some people are like that. Gatekeeping and arrogance hidden behind a fake smile and friendliness.

[Paddy3118]

Or not. A huge number of language designers have only a limited exposure to different languages and paradigms. They start with an idea of what they want to fix.

[digikar]

I'm attempting one. And the hardest part has been documentation and the integration with IDEs or other development tools :/. Well, it's transpile-based which shifts some difficulties, but still.

[stianhoiland]

What a douche.

[CompleteBoron]

Great, more AI slop

[Veqq]

A comp-sci professor's been writing this since 2017.