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Programming Languages

The most popular blog posts about programming languages on Hacker News. 114 posts.

2009
91

Someday we will all program in Python

I can write a program in Java about twice as fast as as I can write the same program C or C++, and I can bang out the same program in Python maybe twice again as fast as I can in Java. In Python, you just get straight to the point and say what you mean by saying things like:

99

Introducing Surinx (Ruby syntax w/ Java typing)

In June of this year, I spent a few hours formulating a dynamic cousin to Duby. Duby, if you don't remember, is a static-typed language with Ruby's syntax and Java's type system. Duby supports all Ruby's literals, uses local type inference (only argument types *must* be declared), and runs as fast as Java (because it…

113

Five Questions about Language Design

(These are some notes I made for a panel discussion on programming language design at MIT on May 10, 2001.) 1. Programming Languages Are for People. Programming languages are how people talk to computers. The computer would be just as happy speaking any language that was unambiguous. The reason we have high level…