Announcing new scripting/prototyping language

[Dave Allison]

Oh no, not another "check out my cool new language" posting

For about 5 years now, I have been developing a scripting/prototyping language
that is now available on the net. It's called Aikido and was born in Sun Labs, but
has been released as open source. I no longer work for Sun, but am continuing
to use and develop it.

The language has a syntax similar to C++ and Java but is aimed at adhoc and
prototyping tasks. Unlike other scripting language, the idea of Aikido is to make
it easy for the programmer who is familiar with the C/C++/Java syntax
to pick it up and get started immediately.

The language is interpreted and has some interesting features:

* Dynamically typed, with large number of builtin types (string, vector, map, etc)
* Lexically scoped, a la Pascal, Ada, etc.
* Object oriented, single inheritance with packages, classes and interfaces
* Multithreaded, with Java and Ada style monitors
* Builtin stream operations
* Operator overloading
* enumerated types
* powerful string manipulation with regular expressions
* ability to call out to C functions with no additional interface code
* partial Java object model

It runs on Solaris, Linux and Mac OS X and is available from www.sun.com/coolstuff.
I will put it on Source Forge or Bitkeeper when I have a chance.

If you find yourself in need of a programming language that is easy to use
and readable, please have a look at it.

Cheers,

Dave

 

[Christopher Benson-Manica]

Oh no, not another "check out my cool new language" posting

Nothing inherently wrong with it, except that few on the groups you've
posted this to will care. Try being topical next time.

If you find yourself in need of a programming language that is easy to use
and readable, please have a look at it.

When I need a language that's easy to use and readable, I turn
directly to C. Don't let me stop you, though.

 

[Yoni Rabkin Katzenell]

Oh no, not another "check out my cool new language" posting

For about 5 years now, I have been developing a scripting/prototyping language
that is now available on the net. It's called Aikido and was born in Sun Labs, but
has been released as open source. I no longer work for Sun, but am continuing
to use and develop it.

The language has a syntax similar to C++ and Java but is aimed at adhoc and
prototyping tasks. Unlike other scripting language, the idea of Aikido is to make
it easy for the programmer who is familiar with the C/C++/Java syntax
to pick it up and get started immediately.

The language is interpreted and has some interesting features:

* Dynamically typed, with large number of builtin types (string, vector, map, etc)
* Lexically scoped, a la Pascal, Ada, etc.
* Object oriented, single inheritance with packages, classes and interfaces
* Multithreaded, with Java and Ada style monitors
* Builtin stream operations
* Operator overloading
* enumerated types
* powerful string manipulation with regular expressions
* ability to call out to C functions with no additional interface code
* partial Java object model

It runs on Solaris, Linux and Mac OS X and is available from www.sun.com/coolstuff.
I will put it on Source Forge or Bitkeeper when I have a chance.

If you find yourself in need of a programming language that is easy to use
and readable, please have a look at it.

Cheers,

Dave

While your project is no doubt very cool and has a great name, is it
really appropriate to use comp.lang.c as an announce channel?

 

[Larry Hazel]

When I need a language that's easy to use and readable, I turn
directly to C. Don't let me stop you, though.

C? Easy to read? You have got to be kidding.

 

[Victor Bazarov]

C? Easy to read? You have got to be kidding.

C to a C[++] programmer is no more difficult than Chinese to
an educated Chinese person. I, on the other hand have no
idea how to read Chinese. But I don't exclaim "you've got
to be kidding" when somebody says that Chinese is possible
to read.

 

[Richard Heathfield]

C? Easy to read? You have got to be kidding.

Compared to the other languages in this crosspost? Damn right it's easy to
read!

I mean yes, okay, I know what you mean. Any sufficiently advanced IOCCC
entry is indistinguishable from line noise. But not /all/ C programs are
IOCCC entries!

 

[Unforgiven]

It's called Aikido

As an aikidoka, I object to that.

I wonder if the Aikikai Hombu Dojo (or someone else) owns the rights to the
name aikido? Probably not, though, considering all the different styles out
there.

 

[Les Cargill]

C? Easy to read? You have got to be kidding.

'C' is a right-regular language, with good orthogonality of
operators. That literally means "easy to read" - or at least
having the capacity to be writrten in a fashion that is easy
to read.

If you've ever seen any deep Perl code, you'd understand

 

[Jack Klein]

Oh no, not another "check out my cool new language" posting

Oh no, not another "cross posted to four groups and off-topic in all
of them" posting :-(

 

[David Allison]

While your project is no doubt very cool and has a great name, is it
really appropriate to use comp.lang.c as an announce channel?

Yeah, you're probably right. Where should I have posted it? Any
suggestions?

There used to be newsgroups like comp.sys.acorn.announce where this
could be done, but I didn't find anything like that for a new language.

It's not entirely off topic though. It is a C-like language

Dave

 

[Preben Randhol]

["Followup-To:" header set to comp.lang.ada.]

'C' is a right-regular language, with good orthogonality of
operators. That literally means "easy to read" - or at least
having the capacity to be writrten in a fashion that is easy
to read.

This is simply not true. How come there are so many buffer overflow
security problems then? However, let us not start a language war again
(as usually happens each time somebody crosspost between several
language newsgroups).

If you've ever seen any deep Perl code, you'd understand

And if you had seen Ada95 code you would understand that C[++] isn't
readable. Especially with huge projects.

 

[Keith Thompson]

Yeah, you're probably right. Where should I have posted it? Any
suggestions?

There used to be newsgroups like comp.sys.acorn.announce where this
could be done, but I didn't find anything like that for a new language.

comp.lang.misc, comp.programming.

It's not entirely off topic though. It is a C-like language

So is C++, and you've seen how we treat people who talk about C++
here. }

 

[Joona I Palaste]

Richard Heathfield <[email protected]> scribbled the following

Compared to the other languages in this crosspost? Damn right it's easy to
read!

I mean yes, okay, I know what you mean. Any sufficiently advanced IOCCC
entry is indistinguishable from line noise. But not /all/ C programs are
IOCCC entries!

I find C harder to read than Java, and easier to read than C++. I
don't know about Ada, as I've never seen it. But C and C++ are a
breeze compared to the likes of Perl, Python and Lisp. They look like
C looked while I was still a BASIC programmer: a random jumble of
punctuation marks.

 

[Frank J. Lhota]

... But C and C++ are a
breeze compared to the likes of Perl, Python and Lisp.

I find Perl particularly obtuse. Perl reminds me of those comics where
obscene language is replaced by a string of random puctuation characters.
Frankly, I don't understand how Perl has caught on when there are more
powerful, and more readable, string processing languages available.

 

[Martijn Lievaart]

I find Perl particularly obtuse. Perl reminds me of those comics where
obscene language is replaced by a string of random puctuation characters.
Frankly, I don't understand how Perl has caught on when there are more
powerful, and more readable, string processing languages available.

I find C particularly obtuse. C reminds me of those comics where
obscene language is replaced by a string of random puctuation characters.
Frankly, I don't understand how C has caught on when there are more
powerful, and more readable, processing languages available.

Not trying to be funny, but your description made me immediately think of
my first introduction to C, and now I'm (trying to be) a Perl hacker. I
guess what is readable is very much in the eye of the beholder.

M4

 

[Alan Balmer]

Thanks for repeating the whole thing. Not.

 

[Georg Bauhaus]

:> Christopher Benson-Manica wrote:
:>
:> >
:> >
:> > When I need a language that's easy to use and readable, I turn
:> > directly to C.
:> >
:>
:> C? Easy to read? You have got to be kidding.
:
: I, on the other hand have no
: idea how to read Chinese. But I don't exclaim "you've got
: to be kidding" when somebody says that Chinese is possible
: to read.

Possible... "readable", then "easy to read", then "possible
to read". Some of Chinese ideographic content is easy to remember if
you learn to distinguish the pictures. Doesn't mean that Chinese
writing is easy to understand, e.g. because of context dependence.
Now what does "read" mean?


Georg

 

[Victor Bazarov]

:> Christopher Benson-Manica wrote:
:>
:> >
:> >
:> > When I need a language that's easy to use and readable, I turn
:> > directly to C.
:> >
:>
:> C? Easy to read? You have got to be kidding.
:
: I, on the other hand have no
: idea how to read Chinese. But I don't exclaim "you've got
: to be kidding" when somebody says that Chinese is possible
: to read.

Possible... "readable", then "easy to read", then "possible
to read". Some of Chinese ideographic content is easy to remember if
you learn to distinguish the pictures. Doesn't mean that Chinese
writing is easy to understand, e.g. because of context dependence.
Now what does "read" mean?

What are you arguing about? For somebody who never saw Latin alphabet,
and only read Chinese all his life, what's easier to read? It has been
already mentioned, readability, or, if you so desire, easiness to read,
is in the eye of the beholder. There is nothing else to talk about.

 

[Georg Bauhaus]

:> Now what does "read" mean?
:
: What are you arguing about? For somebody who never saw Latin alphabet,
: and only read Chinese all his life, what's easier to read?

This is one of the questions implied by "Now what does 'read' mean?".
What's your answer?

(For example, I'm told that Chinese readers have an unusually
high reading speed, measured in time needed to absorb an article
containing a certain amount of "stuff" or "content".
I have not had difficulties reading Cobol fragments although
I know very little about Cobol.
I have had difficulties understanding the same ideas expressed
in other languages that I knew equally well.
How well can you express VHLevel programming constructs in
language X as compared to in language Y?)

: It has been
: already mentioned, readability, or, if you so desire, easiness to read,
: is in the eye of the beholder.

Mentioned... Well, claimed. How about referring to some results
in readability research (it exists)? How much does readability affect
the outcome of programming endeavour? Over time?

: There is nothing else to talk about.

Uhm, yes. Could you?

 

[Victor Bazarov]

[...]

I have no particular interest to continue this OT discussion here,
sorry.