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Re: Looking for volunteers for XL

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On 2011-11-26, BartC <bc@freeuk.com> wrote:
> "Christophe de Dinechin" <christophe@taodyne.com> wrote in message
>>> [There were a bazillion extensible languages in the 1970s, many quite
>>> sophisticated.  They all disappeared without a trace, largely because
>>> the ability to do per-program extensions meant that every program was
>>> written in a different language, making them all unreadable. ...
>
>> [I wrote actual programs in IMP-72.  The compiler was slow, but not
>> unduly so for the time, and it was in the same ballpark as BLISS-11
>> which got a lot of use.  (They both cross-compiled on a PDP-10.) We
>> gave up on it because we didn't want to try to remember which of six
>> slightly different case statements each program used. -John]
>
> Extensible languages have to be used with some care I think. Those
> features aren't for everyday use.

Actually, perhaps surprisingly, language extensibility features are for
everyday use.

> They should be used to turn a language X into a new language X2. X2
> should be properly designed, implemented, and documented. Then
> development should be halted.

This is worth doing for language extensions that are significant, and
of interest to a wider community of people. But it's a time-consuming
process.

Extensibility in the language allows such a thing to be conducted as a
project which regularly releases code (rather than just paper).

It also allows some fraction of any application to consist of some
extensions to give it a little domain-specific language or whatever.

> However, if the design of X2 isn't going to change, you might as well
> just write a compiler directly for X2; it's not necessary to make
> available, to the programmer of X2, all those untidy language-building
> features (for an example, see C++).

The problem with this idea is that X2 is not a completely new
language, but X with some extensions.  Those extensions can be used in
parallel with other extensions to X.

You're trying to fit extensible languages into the traditional model,
in which a lone guru (or small group of such) working atop a mountain
carves a programming language onto stone tablets, which then descend
down to the masses.

Under an extensible language culture, the lone guru working in
isolation produces not a new language, but some new extension. These
can be released as code for people to try. Then when the bug reports
pour in and it's all hammered out, a formal spec can be written.  The
guru deosn't get to ask everyone to ditch their language, only to add
something to it.

[Are you aware of anyone actually doing this?  I agree that you might
expect extensible languages to be handy design testbeds, but somehow
other than in the Lisp community, it didn't work out that way. -John]

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Looking for volunteers for XL Christophe de Dinechin <christophe@taodyne.com> - 2011-11-22 21:03 -0800
  Re: Looking for volunteers for XL Kaz Kylheku <kaz@kylheku.com> - 2011-11-26 05:43 +0000
  Re: Looking for volunteers for XL Christophe de Dinechin <christophe@taodyne.com> - 2011-11-26 12:38 -0800
    Re: Looking for volunteers for XL "BartC" <bc@freeuk.com> - 2011-11-26 23:19 +0000
      Re: Looking for volunteers for XL Christophe de Dinechin <christophe@taodyne.com> - 2011-11-27 12:34 -0800
        Re: Looking for volunteers for XL "BartC" <bc@freeuk.com> - 2011-11-27 22:24 +0000
          Re: Looking for volunteers for XL Christophe de Dinechin <christophe@taodyne.com> - 2011-11-28 14:12 -0800
            Re: Looking for volunteers for XL ardjussi <jussi.santti@ard.fi> - 2011-11-30 13:16 -0800
              Re: Looking for volunteers for XL Kaz Kylheku <kaz@kylheku.com> - 2011-12-01 05:44 +0000
                Re: overloading, was Looking for volunteers for XL glen herrmannsfeldt <gah@ugcs.caltech.edu> - 2011-12-02 05:36 +0000
          Re: Looking for volunteers for XL tm <thomas.mertes@gmx.at> - 2012-01-03 09:28 -0800
      Re: Looking for volunteers for XL Kaz Kylheku <kaz@kylheku.com> - 2011-11-28 04:45 +0000
        Re: Looking for volunteers for XL Timothy Knox <tdk@thelbane.com> - 2011-11-27 22:50 -0800
          Re: Looking for volunteers for XL Alex McDonald <blog@rivadpm.com> - 2011-12-01 12:11 -0800
        Re: Looking for volunteers for XL "BartC" <bc@freeuk.com> - 2011-11-28 10:23 +0000
          Re: Looking for volunteers for XL glen herrmannsfeldt <gah@ugcs.caltech.edu> - 2011-11-29 07:37 +0000
            Re: macros, Looking for volunteers for XL Gene Wirchenko <genew@ocis.net> - 2011-12-03 17:36 -0800
              Re: macros, Looking for volunteers for XL glen herrmannsfeldt <gah@ugcs.caltech.edu> - 2011-12-05 04:24 +0000
          Re: Looking for volunteers for XL Kaz Kylheku <kaz@kylheku.com> - 2011-12-01 05:35 +0000
            Re: designing language extensions, was Looking for volunteers for XL Marco van de Voort <marcov@toad.stack.nl> - 2011-12-03 13:02 +0000
            Re: Looking for volunteers for XL jgk@panix.com (Joe keane) - 2011-12-13 00:08 +0000
              Re: macros, was Looking for volunteers for XL Kaz Kylheku <kaz@kylheku.com> - 2011-12-13 01:39 +0000
                Re: macros, was Looking for volunteers for XL Kaz Kylheku <kaz@kylheku.com> - 2011-12-14 19:00 +0000
                Re: macros, was Looking for volunteers for XL jgk@panix.com (Joe keane) - 2011-12-15 15:40 +0000
                Re: macros, was Looking for volunteers for XL Kaz Kylheku <kaz@kylheku.com> - 2011-12-16 17:48 +0000
        Re: Looking for volunteers for XL glen herrmannsfeldt <gah@ugcs.caltech.edu> - 2011-11-28 10:26 +0000

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