http://www.minddrome.com/produtos/eon/

I assume this is Daniel Yokomiso's language.  I like the write-up so far.  The bit about the Turing tar pit is spot-on.  That's why languages are important...

http://www.digitalmars.com/drn-bin/wwwnews?D/16134

..it's not about ultimate capability, but expressing thought concisely with minimum error.  Yes, a Turing machine can do anything, as can C and FORTRAN. But I'd much rather write 2*8 than 2+2+2+2+2+2+2+2.  That's a good analogy.

I'm curious how Eon will compare with Needle, Oz, Alice ML, and other laboratory languages.  Needle and Alice are statically type-inferred like Eon, but not as contractual (?).  Anyway thanks to Daniel for his thoughtful contributions to D and good luck with Eon.

Mark

On Wed, 27 Aug 2003 02:01:44 +0000 (UTC) (08/27/03 12:01:44)
, Mark Evans <Mark_member@pathlink.com> wrote:

> http://www.minddrome.com/produtos/eon/
>
> I assume this is Daniel Yokomiso's language.  I like the write-up so far.  The
> bit about the Turing tar pit is spot-on.  That's why languages are important...
>
[snip]

> Anyway thanks to Daniel for his thoughtful contributions to D
> and good luck with Eon.

I had to chuckle at this news. Many, many, many years ago, when still new to programming, I wrote down a specification for what I thought would be a 'real neat' language and I called it Event-Object Notation - EON!

There are just so many letters available for acronyms ;-)

But I wish you good luck also Daniel. Personally, I see little folly in a programming Tower of Babel - (but let's not stretch that metaphor too much).

Maybe I should dig it up and publish it on the web (if it still seems neat, that is).

-- 
Derek

I like the lazy integer division producing rationals.  ;)

I might like this language... seems alot like Haskell, but a bit modernized. I like Haskell but it seems perhaps to be falling behind the pack..

Sean

"Mark Evans" <Mark_member@pathlink.com> wrote in message news:bih3e8$rn6$1@digitaldaemon.com...
> http://www.minddrome.com/produtos/eon/
>
> I assume this is Daniel Yokomiso's language.  I like the write-up so far.
The
> bit about the Turing tar pit is spot-on.  That's why languages are
important...
>
> http://www.digitalmars.com/drn-bin/wwwnews?D/16134
>
> ..it's not about ultimate capability, but expressing thought concisely
with
> minimum error.  Yes, a Turing machine can do anything, as can C and
FORTRAN.
> But I'd much rather write 2*8 than 2+2+2+2+2+2+2+2.  That's a good
analogy.
>
> I'm curious how Eon will compare with Needle, Oz, Alice ML, and other
laboratory
> languages.  Needle and Alice are statically type-inferred like Eon, but
not as
> contractual (?).  Anyway thanks to Daniel for his thoughtful contributions
to D
> and good luck with Eon.
>
> Mark

>I might like this language... seems alot like Haskell, but a bit modernized. I like Haskell but it seems perhaps to be falling behind the pack..
>
>Sean

In what ways?

Mark

"Derek Parnell" <Derek.Parnell@No.Spam> escreveu na mensagem news:oprujpaer1yj5swd@news.digitalmars.com...

[snip]

> I had to chuckle at this news. Many, many, many years ago, when still new to programming, I wrote down a specification for what I thought would be a 'real neat' language and I called it Event-Object Notation - EON!
>
> There are just so many letters available for acronyms ;-)

As today there are more programming languages than human languages, and we (programmers) like acronyms... Probably there are a few others.

> But I wish you good luck also Daniel. Personally, I see little folly in a programming Tower of Babel - (but let's not stretch that metaphor too much).

Thanks for the wishes.
If the current programming languages where good enough, it wouldn't be a
problem to adopt the best for the job. But most languages are deficient in a
way or another. The few exclusions are Scheme, Self and Forth IMO, because
they embody everything possible in their paradigms leaving no pieces. If we
had a perfect language for each paradigm combination, no new languages are
necessary. I see a lot of room to improve on statically-typed, side-effect
free, strict languages.

> Maybe I should dig it up and publish it on the web (if it still seems
> neat, that is).

Publish it anyway. It's always worth to read about another programming language. Almost every language has a neat concept, even if it's hidden behind a mountain of keywords.

> --
> Derek

    Best regards,
    Daniel Yokomiso.

"We hope Buddha's finger could inspire friendly love and peace across the
Taiwan Strait to China."
 - Chinese monk I Kong, about the finger-bones of Buddha


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In article <bih3e8$rn6$1@digitaldaemon.com>, Mark Evans says...
>
>http://www.minddrome.com/produtos/eon/
>
>I assume this is Daniel Yokomiso's language.  I like the write-up so far.  The bit about the Turing tar pit is spot-on.  That's why languages are important...
>
>http://www.digitalmars.com/drn-bin/wwwnews?D/16134
>
>..it's not about ultimate capability, but expressing thought concisely with minimum error.  Yes, a Turing machine can do anything, as can C and FORTRAN. But I'd much rather write 2*8 than 2+2+2+2+2+2+2+2.  That's a good analogy.
>
>I'm curious how Eon will compare with Needle, Oz, Alice ML, and other laboratory languages.  Needle and Alice are statically type-inferred like Eon, but not as contractual (?).  Anyway thanks to Daniel for his thoughtful contributions to D and good luck with Eon.
>
>Mark

Argh! I really need to update the documentation. That's what happens when you leave draft publications publicly, people dig your rants ;)

Seriously, I really need to update everything, the concept is unchanged (well except for dropping side-effects in favour of monads), but the semantics improved and the syntax changed heavily.

Regarding the comparison against Needle, Oz and Alice ML here goes a draft:
Needle - it'll be probably very similar to Needle, modulo predicate-based typing
(AFAIK Needle has none of these), purity and the macro syntax (Eon macro calls
are explicit, [ ] denote macro call, with the first token inside being the macro
name: [if 1 < n then 1 else 2]). Of course the basic libraries will be
different.
Oz - very big differences IMO. Oz is dynamically-strong typed, using unification
for bindings and constraints, and allowing imperative code. Eon is
statically-strong typed using predicate-based typing for constraints and keeping
all imperative code inside monads. Eon will also support concurrency, but more
in the model of Erlang using some kind of Process monad instead.
Alice ML - unfortunately this language is still in my reading queue, so I can't
tell much about it, except for the ML part of it (IIRC it's a variant of ML).
Eon probably is able to express everything a ML-like language can, probably with
similar syntax.
Thanks for your wishes.

Best regards,
Daniel Yokomiso.

"Why should I care about posterity? What's posterity ever done for me?"
 - Groucho Marx

"Sean L. Palmer" <palmer.sean@verizon.net> escreveu na mensagem news:bihoeq$1usj$1@digitaldaemon.com...
> I like the lazy integer division producing rationals.  ;)

    If you like it probably you'll love the natural number implementation
using church numerals and the real number implementation based on Dedekind
cuts ;)

> I might like this language... seems alot like Haskell, but a bit
modernized.
> I like Haskell but it seems perhaps to be falling behind the pack..
>
> Sean

    Hmmm, how do you think that Haskell is falling behind the pack? I'm
really interested in hearing what people expect from a programming language,
and how some languages don't make it.

    Best regards,
    Daniel Yokomiso.

"Sometimes I lie awake at night, and I ask, 'Where have I gone wrong?' Then
a voice says to me, 'This is going to take more than one night."
 - Charles Schulz


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For anyone interested, I updated the examples section <http://www.minddrome.com/produtos/eon/examples.html>. Just part of it was updated, but the new syntax for definitions, type expressions and macros is available.


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> Argh! I really need to update the documentation. That's what happens when you leave draft publications publicly, people dig your rants ;)

Your write-up is good. It did not seem like a rant. The phrase "Turing tar pit" is a good one. I like it a lot.

> except for dropping side-effects in favour of monads... purity and the macro syntax

Monads will buy purity. You may want to read the Wadler paper "The marriage of effects and monads" before getting too deep though. http://www.research.avayalabs.com/user/wadler/topics/monads.html

Oz uses 'cells' and 'tickets.' Wadler I alerted to the Oz research several months ago. I'm not sure whether he's had a chance to compare notes.

> Needle - it'll be probably very similar to Needle, modulo predicate-based typing (AFAIK Needle has none of these)

Hmm. Needle employs the MLsub type algebra,
http://www.exalead.com/Francois.Bourdoncle/popl97.html
The type constraints are predicates. MLsub is "a generalization of the
classical Hindley-Milner predicative type system" (p. 69). Maybe you
mean something else by predicate-based.

It almost seems like Needle might be a good starting point for Eon? Or that they could merge?

> Oz - very big differences IMO. Oz is dynamically-strong typed

Dynamic typing is a difference, but not a critical one from a language expressiveness standpoint. Eon, Needle, and Alice all use type inference anyhow - pushing types into the background as it were. I was more interested in the comparison of Eon's goals with those of Oz, especially regarding multiparadigm programming. As an "object-oriented...functional programming language," Eon is trying to bridge similar gaps.

> Eon will also support concurrency, but more in the model of Erlang using some kind of Process monad instead.

OK. A reason for asking about Oz was that Haskell and Erlang seem to be motivating inspirations for Eon. These two languages are in-depth case studies in the Oz book, so in that sense Oz was inspired by them too. http://www.info.ucl.ac.be/people/PVR/book.html I can see where you are going though.  Too bad D is not very concerned about concurrency.

> Alice ML - unfortunately this language is still in my reading queue

It's a statically typed ML with Oz inclusions and controlled dynamic typing.  There is a paper about its implementation, http://www.ps.uni-sb.de/Papers/abstracts/Kornstaedt2001.html

-Mark

It just doesn't seem to be gaining much ground on other languages.  Not compatible enough with C, I guess...

Sean

"Mark Evans" <Mark_member@pathlink.com> wrote in message news:bij75j$164k$1@digitaldaemon.com...
>
> >I might like this language... seems alot like Haskell, but a bit
modernized.
> >I like Haskell but it seems perhaps to be falling behind the pack..
> >
> >Sean
>
> In what ways?
>
> Mark