InfoQ Homepage Language Design Content on InfoQ
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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.
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Dynamic Invocation Runs on OpenJDK
John Rose, a Hotspot VM developer at Sun, has announced the first successful execution of the 'invokedynamic' instruction on the OpenJDK VM. Dynamic invocation is an important feature for adapting dynamic languages to the JVM.
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Interview: Neal Gafter Discusses Closures, Language Features and Optional Typing
In this interview from QCon London 2008, Neal Gafter discusses upcoming language features in Java 7, superpackages, what closures are, the differences between the three major closures proposals (CICE, FCM and BGGA), optional typing systems for dynamic languages, and the next major language.
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Interview: Guy Steele on Programming Languages
Floyd Marinescu, co-founder of InfoQ, interviewed Guy Steele, a Sun Fellow working for the Programming Language Research Group at Sun, about programming languages, the lessons to be learned from the past and what to expect from the future.
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Presentation: Erlang - software for a concurrent world
We get more and more cores in our CPUs, but does our software run linearly faster? In most cases - no. We've hit a trend change when it comes to faster CPUs. We'll get more and more cores, but each core will be slower as the number of cores increase. In his talk, Joe Armstrong introduces Erlang and the ideas of Concurrent Oriented Programming which is one way to solve the problem.
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Do Language Specific Libraries Belong in .NET?
There is a lot of basic functionality the .NET platform does not provide. For example, there is no built-in way to read CSV files, copy directories, or work with zip files. Well actually there is, but only if you dig deep enough.
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Call for Microsoft to Release Spec#
Last month Greg Young initiated a grass roots effort asking for Microsoft to release Spec#.