InfoQ Homepage Language Design Content on InfoQ
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The State of JRuby: 1.6 RC1, JSR 292 and NIO2 in Java 7, 1.9.2 Support
The first RC for JRuby 1.6 is out and brings improved Ruby 1.9.2 compatibility, experimental C extensions support, improved Windows support, Ruby Gems Maven support, performance and profiling improvements and more. InfoQ talked to JRuby's Charles Nutter about JRuby 1.6, the impact of Java 7 on JRuby, new language features in Ruby and much more.
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Visual Basic is Losing Its Runtime Library
The rather extensive runtime library used by Visual Basic and its compiler has been a major stumbling block for the language. Both the Windows Phone 7 and the XBox 360 don’t support the library, making clumsy workarounds necessary. With Visual Basic 10 SP 1, Microsoft once again tries to get it right.
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Why Microsoft Believes that VB and C# Need an Asynchronous Syntax
The new Async CPT for VB and C# looks like it may actually make it into the core language. But with all the emphasis on multi-core systems, why is Microsoft investing so heavily in syntax for designed specifically for making single-threaded asynchronous programming easier?
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Follow-up: Razor with F# and Other Languages
Last month Vladimir Kelman asked if it were possible to use F# with the new Razor view engine. After talking with Scott Guthrie and Marcin Dobosz we learned that it is possible, if you want to put in the effort to build all necessary plugins yourself.
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MonoDevelop is the Third IDE for F#
MonoDevelop has become the third IDE to support Microsoft’s F# language. With .NET support essentially dead on the Eclipse IDE and WebMatrix being targeted for causal developers, it is likely to be the last IDE to add support for it in the foreseeable future.
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Languages Come to Javascript VMs: CoffeeScript 1.0, StratifiedJS, C/C++ with Emscripten, Python
Javascript's ubiquity and increasingly fast VMs have made it an interesting runtime for languages. InfoQ looks at languages and tools that compile to Javascript: CoffeeScript 1.0, StratifiedJS, the Emscripten LLVM backend which brings C/C++ to Javascript, and more.
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Languages Come to Javascript VMs: CoffeeScript 1.0, StratifiedJS, C/C++ with Emscripten, Python
Javascripts ubiquity and increasingly fast VMs have made it an interesting runtime for languages. InfoQ looks at languages and tools that compile to Javascript: CoffeeScript 1.0, StratifiedJS, the Emscripten LLVM backend which brings C/C++ to Javascript, and more.
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JDK7 Feature Slip
In a post entitled Re-thinking JDK7, Mark Reinhold put forward a suggestion that certain previously planned elements of JDK7 be suspended until JDK8 in order to get the release out of the door sooner rather than later. What does the community think of this suggestion? Read on to find out.
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Optional Parameters Are Gaining Ground in .NET
Optional parameters have always been part of .NET, but with C# unwilling to support it, using them was generally considered taboo unless work with COM libraries. Now that C# 4 does support them, we are starting to see them used for a lot more than just legacy code. Other uses include interoperability with dynamic languages, immutable data structures, and various parts of ASP.NET MVC.
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Microsoft’s Experiments with Software Transactional Memory Have Ended
Dana Groff has announced the end of Microsoft’s experiment with software transactional memory for the .NET Framework. Known as STM.NET, this research project was announced in 2008 as an alternative to explicit locks when dealing with concurrency issues.
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Mono Introduces Experimental C# Language Extensions
Having caught with the recent advances in Microsoft’s C# 4, the Mono team is now playing with their own extensions to the language. The two features they are experimenting with are string interpolation and support for multiple return values.
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Clojure 1.1 Adds Transients, Chunked Sequences for Efficiency
Clojure 1.1 RC1 is out and cuts the overhead of functional programming with a few new constructs: transients bring controlled mutability for persistent data structures; chunked sequences make lazy sequences more efficient. InfoQ takes a look at what makes these improvements work.
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JDK 7 Milestone 5 Includes Concurrency and Performance Updates, But Is Not Feature Complete
Sun's Java SE team recently released the Milestone 5 build of JDK 7. This was expected to be a feature complete release of Java 7 but is some way short of that. InfoQ takes a look at what has been added and some of the major features still missing.
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Mark Reinhold on Closures for Java
Following on from last week's surprise announcement at Devoxx that Sun would be adding closures to Java, Mark Reinhold has published a blog entry providing more background to the decision.
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JDK 7 Unexpectedly Gets “Simple” Closures, but is Pushed Back to End of 2010
During his Devoxx talk, Mark Reinhold has announced that JDK 7 will have Closures. With the inclusion of this much debated feature, JDK 7 schedule will be extended until around September 2010.