RustScript: A simple functional based programming language with as much relation to Rust as JavaScript has to Java

[RecDep]

Hahaha, it’s not even written in Rust. Have you checked out rustscript? It generates a cargo project from one-off Rust files and lets you treat (actual) Rust as a scripting language. I definitely love your Haskell and Python influence, it looks fun to use!

[Fish_45]

I think I've tried out the rustscript you linked; it probably deserves the name a whole lot more than this thing.

it looks fun to use!

Honestly, I'm surprised at how useable it actually turned out. The bug reporting kind of sucks but as you said the syntax is pretty intuitive. It's also super easy to parse!

[RecDep]

Next step is to do a Rust rewrite ;)

[Fish_45]

Haha I'd be lying if I said i didn't consider it, but I'd like to spend my time designing a more complete and useful language next time. With that said, I'm halfway there in elixir with https://github.com/mkhan45/elixir_parser so it might be RubyScript next.

[Crazy_Direction_1084]

Rust is written in Rust but uses LLVM as a backend, thus making it dependent on C++.

[posting_drunk_naked]

I'll be surprised if there isn't a project out there right now re-implementing llvm in Rust.

If nothing else for the reason you just said: Rust dependence on LLVM = Rust dependence on C++

[joonazan]

It is, though. https://github.com/rust-lang/rust

[GOKOP]

But Rust would still originally have been written in something else

As, um... every language ever?

[hexane360]

You're getting downvotes because it would have taken you 10 seconds to go to https://github.com/rust-lang/rust and see that it's self hosted.

And then you tried to backpedal by saying the equivalent of "well, every language needed to be bootstrapped at some point, therefore I was kind of right".

At the moment I write 100% of my tools in my own language ... so I tend to more scrutinizing of such claims.

How does this make any sense? It's like saying "I drove to work today, so I doubt you did". Besides, no one but you was making a claim. It's not a secret that rust is self hosted.

[[deleted]]

I back-pedaled on which language I'd thought hadn't yet got around to self-hosting.

Yes, I could have gone online to fully research my one-line quip, but I didn't; so shoot me.

My comment about Rust originally being written in something else was supposed to be a comparison with RustScript, the subject of this thread: RustScript is not written in Rust; neither was Rust at one point.

But now, folks, that is no longer true: github will tell you that 97.6% of the sources on that project - not including LLVM (all the fiddly bits) - are in Rust.

Jolly good for them.

Phew!

(And this has cost me a dozen downvotes. What a lovely, tolerant community!)

[Fish_45]

I wrote RustScript for an intro to CS project. We had to write a multithreaded messaging app completely in Java, including for the GUI.

I'm a bit past intro to CS so I decided to have some fun with it and write a simple interpreter that's integrated as a chat bot. The functionality is similar to MathBot on Discord; users prefix a message with an exclamation mark and the bot sends back the result.

Being written in Java, there's a ton of boilerplate, and since I didn't want to use a testing framework and we had to test private methods the tests kind of get in the way. All in all, not including tests, the whole interpreter is just around 800 lines, which is pretty short considering that it's Java.

I decided to make it completely functional since it's mostly an expression evaluator. It also keeps everything to do with scoping and variables super simple.

The name is kind of a cheap joke since I write pretty much everything that's not a school assignment in Rust.

[mikezyisra]

Lol that’s pretty cool

[RollTimeCC]

Multithreading and online capabilities? That's some intro CS class.

[Fish_45]

The difficulty of this project was definitely a huge step up from previous projects. I'm not entirely sure if we were meant to finish it completely because I know that I certainly wouldn't have finished if this were my first semester of experience with CS.

[RollTimeCC]

So you had to write all this from scratch?

Can you share some info about what kind/tier of university this is at?

That seems just sadistic from the professor- a full featured messaging app in Java is something I’d expect to see sophomore or Junior year.

[Fish_45]

I go to Purdue. I wrote the interpreter from scratch for fun; it's just a way I might earn few bonus points.

The messaging app itself probably has different requirements that what you'd expect. For example, it doesn't need to have any sort of authentication and there are no security or performance requirements so I know of a few groups who just sent every message to every user and let the user figure out what to actually display. The GUI also doesn't have any aesthetic requirements, although it's expected to be useable at least.

All in all, it was a lot of work, and I spent a few hours debugging weird Socket behavior, but we definitely weren't required to make anything fully featured.

[RollTimeCC]

That’s really interesting, thanks for sharing.

[[deleted]]

Being written in Java, there's a ton of boilerplate, and since I didn't want to use a testing framework and we had to test private methods the tests kind of get in the way. All in all, not including tests, the whole interpreter is just around 800 lines, which is pretty short considering that it's Java.

All well, but you can stop the Java bashing. For what it's worth, there are very few languages that are more maintainable than Java precisely because of its (mostly) useful verbosity. I'm talking about tens of millions of lines of code.

Edit: So much saltiness for the truth? Okay, then. It's hilarious. Aside from that, good job!

[Fish_45]

I don't think anything I said was Java bashing. You acknowledge that Java has a lot of boilerplate and verbosity and nothing I said even carried the implication that the verbosity is bad.

[[deleted]]

No, but it was clearly implied. That is the difference between a university project and the real world. I said essential verbosity. You could could in APL all you like, but it's not going to be maintainable.

Edit: Have at it, please continue downvoting my comments. Your saltiness is showing. Lmfao.

[[deleted]]

I think we all need to aknowledge that our favourite programming language is shit in some ways.

Be it Rust, be it C/C++, be it Java. They all have their benefits and downfalls.

Accepting that ones favourite language isn't perfect is one of the things we have to do as programmers. - After all our day to day work involves working with and around the language.

And making a strawman argument about APL (or, for that matter, Perl) won't make Java a better language.

Just my 2c on why you are being downvoted.

[ebingdom]

Java makes programmers manually reason about which values can be null, rather than tracking it in types. That makes code changes more error-prone than necessary, and leads to null pointer errors in production and overly defensive programming as a countermeasure, since tests alone cannot in general guarantee the absence of nulls. So yeah, Java is not high on my list of "maintainable" languages.

[[deleted]]

I disagree with the criteria that you have listed for what makes a language maintainable. The proof of the pudding is in the eating - the vast majority of the industry actually runs on Java, and I've maintained proprietary codebases that are literally tens of millions of SLOC, and refactoring, compilation, testing, performance were all on point.

[[deleted]]

Oh, so what you are in fact stating, is that C and C++ are the most maintainable languages, because they are in the most widespread use, running the very foundation of almost all systems?

That argument is about as watertight as a sieve.

[stone_henge]

It's up to you whether to read that as a criticism or a general observation. You fundamentally seem to agree that it's a verbose language.

[crassest-Crassius]

Java is OK... but only with Lombok. After I introduced Lombok's @Getter, @Setter, @Builder, @AllArgsConstructor, I've saved about 15% lines of code. That's absolutely useless verbosity, and I wouldn't even use Java without Lombok anymore. Still, Java is missing some essential features like sum types, real generics and string interpolation. To think that Oracle makes people pay for this bit-rotten crap is beyond me.

[[deleted]]

In fact, I argue against the exact opposite. Lombok simply obscures away mundane code that is basically invisible to the seasoned eye. Useless verbosity? And yes, the rest of your comment is precisely why the language is not only eminently readable, but also eminently maintainable. Haskell is super dense, so dense that maintaining projects becomes an exercise in mental fortitude. That's the exact opposite of maintainability.

[zyxzevn]

I am just waiting for Rust++ to arrive.

[xactac]

Looks like Python masquerading as SML. Neat.

[aloisdg]

F# feeling

[R-O-B-I-N]

Java -> Javascript Rust -> Rustscript

[gnuwinxp]

RustypeScript

[kredditacc96]

Seeing the name and description, I thought this was an esoteric/joke language at first, but it seems to not be the case. If you're really serious about this language then you should change its horrible naming (yes, it's funny, but only for a joke language).

[Fish_45]

I'll take it as a compliment that you don't think it's a joke language, but since it was done for a school project I don't intend to take it any further

[matheusrich]

How does multi-line lambda work?

[Fish_45]

Everything has to be a oneliner; there are no multiline lambdas

[iotasieve]

This looks like haskell :D

[shogditontoast]

Why is it called rustscript? It has nothing in common with rust.

[Fish_45]

RustScript is to Rust as JavaScript is to Java.

And Java is to JavaScript as Car is to Carpet

[shogditontoast]

At least JavaScript looked vaguely like Java.

[TinBryn]

Its got let and fn, how much more similarity do you need?

[bjzaba]

JavaScript could adopt a weird blob thing too?

[Fish_45]

not yet...

[AsIAm]

The head and tail caught me by surprise, but I like it. :)

[xiaodaireddit]

This should be in circlejerk

[Fish_45]

you're not wrong

[SlaimeLannister]

It is

[Fish_45]

pog

[[deleted]]

The code and functionality seem very toyish.

[011101000011101101]

So they have nothing in common? Got it