No New Ideas, Please

Nothing bothers me more than a flawed language feature, for which there's a well known, working solution in another language. Really, I think PL design is so hard, that if you design something new (like some abstraction or concept), there's a 98% chance that it will suck. Hard. So hard.

So, one of my goals with my new Lisp is to faithfully reuse large, modular parts of functionality developed by others, and proven in the field. Preferably for decades. In a way, this changes PL design from invention to curation, and I'm very happy with it.

Here's what Ell is made of:

• evaluation and expansion: R6RS Scheme (but as a Lisp-2)
• control flow: Common Lisp
  
• micromodule system: Chez Scheme
• compilation and phase separation: PLT Scheme
• macros: SRFI 72
• object system: proper subset of CLOS
• inline C: Goo
• condition system: Dylan
• dynamic variables: ISLISP
  

All of these parts are copied, in what I hope is a faithful way, that exactly preserves the original design, or a subset of it. That's the goal, at least. Of course there's some need for editing these features, so that they fit well together, but that shouldn't change the original intent and abstractions.

Like Peter van Roy, I think that programming-in-the-small is a solved problem. Really, innovating in language design microfeatures, like say, some new way to pass parameters, is so boring, and will with great likelihood make the language landscape even more trite than it is now. Much better to reuse something that already exists, and adapt it faithfully.

All of this applies only, of course, if you're building a language that follows some common plan, like say "object-oriented dynamic language". In that case, please reuse. If you're doing something totally new and/or crazy (like, say, a functional reactive PL), you're of course free to invent what you want.

Ell Kernel Language

I'm nearing completion of the kernel language of my new Lisp, the Executable and Linkable Lisp, ell(1).

It's basically what I want from a modern Lisp, as simple as possible, but not simpler. The language will be translated to straightforward C (or C++, don't know yet), and enable true Lisp dynamicity and very deep Unix integration.

The major goal of the language is to make programming delightful. Of the "right" kinds of programs that is, since a language can't be delightful for everything.

Dave Moon's Programming Language for Old Timers also proves a great inspiration again. Am I an old-timer already? Dunno.

Specifically, Moon gives a no-nonsense description of hygiene, something which the Schemers have slight trouble with, as they seem to be a bit high on their own kleverness.