Best of 2020

The blog posts Hacker News loved most in 2020. 427 posts.

Programming Languages
223

Which Parsing Approach?

We all know that parsing is an important part of designing and implementing programming languages, but it’s the equivalent of Brussels sprouts: good for the diet, but a taste that only a select few enjoy. Unfortunately, I’ve come to realise that our general distaste for parsing is problematic. While many of us think…

228

F (2006)

F is a pure functional concatenative language originally designed as an extension of False . F contains the list-operations of K3 and the dip combinator of Joy . Floating-point and symbolic datatypes are supported. One-time assignment is enforced in syntax. A theory of function-valence and -charge is outlined. F also…

234

Lambda Calculus Diagrams (2015)

The following table shows diagrams of identity, the booleans, some standard combinators, some Church numerals, the predecessor function on Church numerals, and Omega. term definition diagram alternative I/1 λx.x K/true λx.λy.x false/0 λx.λy.y S λx.λy.λz.(x z)(y z) Y λf.(λx.x x)(λx.f(x x)) 2 λf.λx.f(f x) 3 λf.λx.f(f(f…

236

Racket 7.8

Racket version 7.8 is now available from https://racket-lang.org/ Racket CS may become the default Racket implementation in the next release. With the improvements in this release, Racket CS provides all of the functionality of Racket BC (the curre...