InfoQ Homepage Language Design Content on InfoQ
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Rich Hickey on Clojure's Features and Implementation
In this interview from QCon London 2009, Rich Hickey talks about Clojure. The discussion includes the ideas behind Clojure's STM support, what other concurrency primitives Clojure supports and which ones might get added in the future. Other topics covered are Clojure's AOT support, the role and implementation of multimethods, Clojure ports to other systems and much more.
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Source for the D.NET Compiler is Now Available
Cristian Vlasceanu has released the source code for the D.NET compiler. Like C++ and ObjectiveC, D is a C-based language that attempts to correct some of the issues and limitations of the venerable language.
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Presentation: The State of the DSL Art in Ruby
In this talk Glenn Vanderburg discusses what the Ruby community has learned about building DSLs, and shows how to build state-of-the-art DSLs without going overboard.
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Declarative Concurrency For Ruby With Dataflow
Part of the Ruby language was influenced by functional programming techniques. Larry Diehl brings a declarative concurrent model to Ruby by importing the concept of unification from Oz Language with the Dataflow project.
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Interview: Guy Steele Interviews John McCarthy, Father of Lisp
In this phone interview that took place in front of an audience at OOPSLA 2008, Guy Steele spins a yarn with John McCarthy, the father of Lisp, attempting to find out some details surrounding the language inception in the 50’ and its later evolution.
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Presentation: Evolving the Java Language
Neal Gafter discusses how to evolve a widely deployed language without causing disruption using planned changes for JDK7 (superpackages, closures, annotations on types, type inference, exception handling, and self types) as an example. He examines how the changes are conditioned by preexisting language design choices, and discusses their influence on API design.
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C#/VB Parity in .NET 4
At the 2008 PDC, Microsoft promised language parity between Visual Basic and C#. What that means for .NET 4 was enumerated during the Lang.NET keynote. Briefly, this is what you can expect to see.
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More on Dynamic Support in C#
Mads Torgersen presents more details on the dynamic keyword in C# and how it came to be. Included are some of the alternate designs that were eventually discarded in favor of the dynamic keyword.
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SABLE, a Smalltalk-Inspired Language for .NET
Keith Robertson, the founder of Kuler Software Tools, has written a Smalltalk-inspired language for the .NET platform called SABLE, a language meant to draw upon the qualities of Smalltalk’s syntax and the benefits of running on CLR.
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Article: Developing a Complex External DSL
In this article Vaughn Vernon explains the difference between internal and external DSLs and shows the steps involved in developing a complex external DSL.
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No More Underscores in VB 10
Visual Basic 10 will have an improved compiler that makes underscores optional for most line continuations. This represents a significant change for VB, traditionally a line-terminated language.
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Interview: Don Syme Answering Questions on F#, C#, Haskell and Scala
In this interview made by InfoQ’s Sadek Drobi, Don Syme, a Senior Researcher at Microsoft Research, answers questions mostly on F#, but also on functional programming, C# generics, type classes in Haskell, similarities between F# and Scala.
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Is It Premature to Talk About C++ and Java’s Legacy?
Bruce Eckel’s recent blog post on the legacy left by C++ and Java generated a lot of reaction. While mentioning some design mistakes, he concludes that both languages have had a significant role in programming languages evolution and an important positive legacy. But is it not too early to talk about their legacy?
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Presentation: Evolving the Java Platform
In this presentation recorded at QCon London 2008, Ola Bini talks about the current status of the JVM regarding languages running on top of it and the need to evolve in order to support dynamic languages.
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Presentation: Taming Effects with Functional Programming
In this presentation recorded during QCon London 2008, Simon Peyton-Jones advertises the need for programming purity achieved especially through use of functional languages and the increased attention given to functional programming.