InfoQ Homepage Language Design Content on InfoQ
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The Ioke JVM Language: The power of Lisp and Ruby with an intuitive syntax
Ola Bini, a core JRuby developer and author of the book Practical JRuby on Rails Projects, has been developing a new language for the JVM called Ioke. This strongly typed, extremely dynamic, prototype based object oriented language aims to give developers the same kind of power they get with Lisp and Ruby, combined with a nice, small, regular syntax.
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Visual Basic 10: Rounding the Edges
Like C# 4, VB 10 isn't going to see a lot of ground breaking features. Everything so far was already available, just not in a convenient form. So this release is very much just rounding off the rough edges.
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.NET and Dynamic Languages
In the months and years ahead, dynamic languages are going to take on an increasing important role in the .NET platform. To support this Microsoft is heavily investing in integration between the dynamic languages and the CLR.
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Ruby VM Roundup: Ruby 1.9.1 Preview 1, Rubinius Moves To C++ VM
Ruby 1.9.1 Preview 1 is now out, which marks a freeze on language features and most other items, with a final release of 1.9.1 scheduled for late January 2009. Ruby 1.9.1 is planned to be the first stable 1.9.x release. Also: the C++ branch of Rubinius has been promoted as the default branch.
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C# Feature Focus: Co- and Contra-variance
With .NET 4, C# 4 will be able to support co- and contra-variance in generic interfaces. If you are not familiar with them, think of it as the reason why you can't pass an IEnumerable<Apple> to a function expecting an IEnumerable<Fruit>.
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C# Feature Focus: Optional and Named Parameters, COM Interoperability
Believe it or not, C# is going to have full support for optional and named parameters. This, and other features intended for COM support, will be included in C# 4. There was also a rumor about parameterized properties.
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C# Feature Focus: Dynamically Typed Objects, Duck Typing, and Multiple Dispatch
With the increasing importance of dynamic languages and the DLR, C# needs to be able to work with dynamically typed objects. In C# 3 this requires a lot of CLR or DLR reflection code. In C# 4, this will all be handled by the keyword dynamic.
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Article: Ruby's Roots: Smalltalk Comeback and Randal Schwartz on Smalltalk
Smalltalk, a language that has had a big influence on Ruby, is making a comeback. We take a look at the current situation and talk to Randal L. Schwartz about Smalltalk.
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Review: C# Annotated Standard
When you need to know how the C# compiler really works, there is no better place than the C# Standard. But sometimes even that is not enough, especially when you need to know how the Microsoft and Mono compilers differ. This is where Jon Jagger, Perry, Sestoft's Annotated C# Standard comes into play.
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Interview: Ted Neward on Present and Past Languages
In this interview filmed during QCon London 2008, Ted Neward, author of "Effective Enterprise Java", talks about languages, statical, dynamical, objectual or functional. He dives into Java, C#, C++, Haskell, Scala, VB, and Lisp, to name some of them, comparing the benefits and disadvantages of using one or another.
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Anders Hejlsberg and Guy Steele on Concurrency and Language Design
An interview recorded at JAOO, Anders Hejlsberg and Guy Steele talk about concurrency in language design. Anders Hejlsberg is the chief architect of C#, creator of Turbo Pascal, and former chief architect of Delphi. Guy Steele is the creator of Scheme and is currently working on Sun's Fortress, a programming language that focuses on parallelism and mathematics.
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Date and Time API: Round 3
The existing Date and Calendar classes haven't really fit the bill for developers and have often been a painful area of the API to work with. JSR 310 aims to provide a complete, fully featured Date and Time API for the Java platform which might be available with Java 7.
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More Languages on top of Erlang Virtual Machine
Erlang virtual machine – BEAM – hosts an increasing number of languages. Reia, a Python/Ruby like scripting language and Lisp Flavoured Erlang have recently been released. Debasish Ghosh reflects on this trend while other authors try to outline other possible language variants inspired by Ruby or Haskell.
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Article: Java FX Technology Preview
InfoQ takes a look at the JavaFX preview release and talks to Sun Staff Engineer Joshua Marinacci about version 1 expected this autumn.
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Interview: Simon Peyton Jones on Programming Languages and Research Work
In this QCon London 2008 interview, computer scientist and researcher Simon Peyton Jones discusses properties of functional programming languages, and particularly Haskell, that have inspired some features in mainstream languages. He gives his opinion on the issues of syntax and language complexity and talks about some research work on subjects such as data parallelism and transactional memory.