HN Theater @HNTheaterMonth

⬐ hazelnut-tree

Some extracts from the video (the full video has much more detail):

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Rust

"It borrows great proven concepts from other languages like, for example, algebraic data types. It makes sure that the language constructs don't lead to slow or inefficient code. Rust calls it zero cost abstractions."

"There's also no compromise regarding memory safety. This must not be delegated to the programmer - it must be inherent in the language. Rust tries to tackle the problem of mutable state with heavy restrictions where the state can be modified through the borrow checker. The resulting programs are easier to reason about, albeit harder to write. Architecture must not be an afterthought. However, there are also some downsides in Rust: some functionality which is easy to achieve in other languages might be rather hard."

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Nim

"One can write highly efficient code in such a simple way. The code is easy to read and really a pleasure to look at. It's compiled to C but can also be compiled to JavaScript."

"Nim's memory management is deterministic and customizable and it even follows some move semantics which are inspired by C++ and Rust and it's therefore also suited for embedded and hard real-time systems you can even choose which garbage collector runs."

"Nim also has a powerful macro system and you can actually directly manipulate the abstract syntax tree and therefore you can create your own domain specific languages."

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Vale

"It's a brand new language currently still in its alpha version."

"Vale is fast. It uses LLVM as a compiler back-end, it's statically typed and it uses so-called 'generational references'. It's a technique for memory safety. Soon it will have a region borrow checker to make it even faster (and because it uses generational references). It's also safe and it also has fearless foreign function interface, and of course Vale strives to be easy and memory safe."

"Generational references: they are a memory management technique which allows for easy deterministic and very fast memory access so generational references are built on the concept of single ownership (that you might already know from Rust)."

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The future

"We're kind-of stuck with the mainstream languages. The future looks bright - so many interesting concepts, so many new and better ways of doing things. Makes me curious and I can't wait to see the future impact of such languages."

⬐ davidkunz

In this video, I'm exploring the future of programming languages and look at some examples.

⬐ kwatsonafter

My dude: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pTEmbeENF4&ab_channel=JoeyR...

I promise you will not be dissatisfied and believe it or not I got more where that came from. If you're ever in a pinch go look up Brenda Laurel talks on YouTube and be prepared to have everything you've ever thought about computing completely turned upside down.

⬐ davidkunz

Thanks for the link, I already watched the video, awesome stuff!

⬐ kwatsonafter

Reposted from YT comments:

Respectfully I think you're missing the point; the future is new kinds of programming paradigms emerging. Consider punch cards evolving into the Burroughs 5XXX evolving into compilers evolving into, "live systems" (Smalltalk, Erlang's BEAM) which laterally gives rise to REPL-style interaction which makes the previous "write a tome and let the computer read it and then let you know what it thinks" seems superfluous and antiquated compared to, "the computer is listening and will respond back instantaneously when it is talked to." It's worthwhile to think in those kinds of terms-- we can with historical precedent consider that whatever supersedes current human-computer interaction will probably be along similar lines. I think so far we've gotten to a kind of responsive Cartesian, List-evaluating (wink, wink) object which can respond to our commands and that's where modern L337bro from California coding comes from. I'm really saddened for everything we've done with phones that Erlang isn't somehow standard for developing high throughput systems. I digress.

Larry Tesler and others were working on, "Actionable Programming" in the late 80's which I think is now referred to as, "Programming by Demonstration." There currently (prove me wrong here) a comprehensive system where-in the actual computation that takes place can be, "recorded" and, "played back" with arbitrary constraints applied to which (depending on constraints), "timeline" (consider branching web histories) the computer ends up, "deciding on." If memory serves the last time.I was at the Viewpoints website Alan Kay was working on something to do with ontologies. There definitely is a way forward.

"Computer I want you to display to me a system of constraints. Based on this constraint what might be the possible behaviors of the system in the future; of all of these constraints which most fits the criteria. Return(Critera)"

There's a demo by Bret Victor ("Inventing On Principle") where he actual demonstrates this kind of thing in real life along with other, "future programming" paradigm examples. Definitely worth looking at.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pTEmbeENF4&ab_channel=JoeyR...