Leaf: A New "Soon To Be Great" Programming Language

[Delgarde]

And while Eclipse has a similiar extension system, the IDE itself feels just...unprofessional...interestingly I get the same feeling when seeing/using a KDE desktop, but not with Gnome.

I suspect that it's because both Eclipse and KDE are similar in how they balance configuration/customisation with tight integration.... they rate very well on the former, but this sometimes comes at the expensive of having some rough edges exposed where the pieces don't fit as well as they could. It's a trade-off, since fixing those rough edges typically requires sacrificing some customisability, reducing the number of permutations of configurations (the approach Gnome has long taken).

For my part, I can tolerate this for the sake of a good IDE (where I value the flexibility more), but find it less acceptable at the desktop level... KDE has never really felt like a good fit for me...

[Marc Driftmeyer]

What an absolute waste of resources. You want some of these paradigms rolled into long-standing and modernized languages, sounds great. Wasting talent on reinventing another wheel is a waste of time.

Very lovely web site for Martha Stewart.

[mrugiero]

*sarcasm* I am so happy about this I can hardly contain myself! */sarcasm*

Seriously though, why? The features read like nothing special that other languages already have since ages (C#, Python, Javascript). Is the "We do what we must because we can" and "Why not Zoidberg?" really so alluring instead of ... you know ... doing what is considered useful stuff?

Apart from a bulky syntax for declaring typed variables ("var a : integer 32bit") and nullables ("optional" - compare that to C#'s "int?") nothing noteworthy pokes me in the eye yet...

Yeah, I know, I may sound bitter and "what have you accomplished" ... but I can just respond with: For a start, I know what others already have accomplished so I don't need to reinvent the wheel.

I thought of it as mostly a hobby project. I wouldn't expect it to be used professionally, because, well, there are other mature languages implementing all or almost all of its features. But for learning programming languages theory, creating a language is probably great.

well, it's true. But after I started to program in Visual Studio (which was the first IDE I got to know), everything else was a disappointment. The only IDE that I ever liked, aside from Visual Studio, was Netbeans. Most people don't seem to like it though.

I sometimes use Code::Blocks. Aside from the aesthetics, a constant bugging because of a few incompatible plugins at startup (it should have a "don't show me again" button) and the slow startup, I find it fairly good. QtCreator seems really good, too, although I find it a bit less intuitive. I don't know if it has got some fast shortcuts, but I usually find myself clicking a whole lot of times just to use the advanced search capabilities, which is what I actually use the most in both IDEs (I usually debug from the console, build from the console, etc, I use the IDE mostly for modifying the code and nothing else). I grant you, I make a pretty basic use of the IDEs, so that's why my bar is so low there, but as I said, I don't find it to be a must.

[AnonymousCoward]

Speaking of programming languages. Has anyone tried Lua? Thoughts, impressions?!

It's great to embed inside, but not limited to, C or C++ programs. The reference implementation is pretty fast for an interpreter, and there is also a JIT (just in time) compiled version called LuaJIT which compiles the scripts at runtime to machine code (dramatically increases the speed). I would say it is more for embedding into programs than using the language itself to create applications. Python as an example, would be more suited as a general purpose scripting language in comparison to Lua, as the Python standard library contains basically everything you need to create fully fledged applications.

Coming from a C background, the language itself takes a bit to get used to. For instance, indices in Lua start at 1, as opposed to 0. To access a member of a class you need to use : instead of the ususal . or -> e.g: mycls:do_something() unless you pass the "self".

Disclaimer: These are just my personal opinions.

[AnonymousCoward]

Leaf looks a lot like Javascript. I'm not trying to discourage anyone, but what problem does Leaf try to solve? What can/or will Leaf be able to do what current languages can't? Will it be another general purpose scripting language like Python? Wouldn't it have made more sense to "extend" current javascript engines like spidermonkey/v8 and add the needed functionality?

[Pseus]

as a software developer I don't care much about how 'great' or 'hipster' a programming language is. The important things are: Is the documentation useable and how good are the available IDEs. And as long as there is nothing that comes even remotely close to Visual Studio in combination with the MSDN, it's not worth it to discuss the language.

In my experience, Java IDEs and docs are just as good. Though I've only used VS for C++ development in the past (up to version 2008).

[Pseus]

In my experience, Java IDEs and docs are just as good. Though I've only used VS for C++ development in the past (up to version 2008).

Err, can't find the edit button: when I refer to Java IDEs I mean IntelliJ IDEA.

[Pseus]

Err, can't find the edit button: when I refer to Java IDEs I mean IntelliJ IDEA.

Stupid 1 minute limit for edits. And regarding the article: IMO, the most interesting in-development language would be Rust for now.

[fuzz]

Leaf looks a lot like Javascript.

I was thinking the same thing.

From the website, the guy says "I want a language that makes it a joy to write great programs."

Perhaps he should try Python.

[F i L]

Language looks interesting. Good to see another language focus on memory safety and performance (it's focused on performance right? website is a bit lacking on information). I like the syntax in some ways ('type', 'func', 'var <name> : <type> = ...', etc) but don't like it in other ways ('integer'.. really? 'int' is common enough to justify abbreviation, and why remove if statements?).

Anyways, looks interesting, and good to see it's LLVM backed and all that. Maybe it will be great in the future. Though i'm not really seeing anything "new" besides syntax (well, i guess it's syntax, memory safety, and C/C++ level performance/control? that could be worth it). I'll keep an eye on it.

The Nimrod Programming Language has pretty much everything benefit of Leaf, but also introduces a ton of great things other languages don't do (that have nothing to do with syntax).