[HN Gopher] A hackable hobby programming language
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       A hackable hobby programming language
        
       Author : creative_spirit
       Score  : 32 points
       Date   : 2022-06-17 19:17 UTC (3 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (slope.colorfield.space)
 (TXT) w3m dump (slope.colorfield.space)
        
       | drdude wrote:
       | Why not use Racket then? Can do more and better support and
       | tooling.
        
       | voidhorse wrote:
       | wow, lots of negativity and criticism in this thread for what is
       | explicitly called out as a fun project (that's what hobby means,
       | linked in the language description on the front page):
       | https://slope.colorfield.space/hobby.html
       | 
       | Creating a programming language, no matter how robust, is not a
       | trivial endeavor--I'd rather celebrate the existence of this
       | language and its pretty explicit posturing that it's just for fun
       | rather than criticize it immediately for its lack of utility.
        
       | creative_spirit wrote:
       | A hackable hobby programming language and toolset for having fun
       | and making cool things
        
         | wcerfgba wrote:
         | Can you tell us a bit about what makes it 'hackable', or maybe
         | some cool hacks you can do with it? :)
        
           | garren wrote:
           | It's a lisp, so it's eminently hackable - you can do
           | everything with it, and simultaneously nothing ;p
           | 
           | I love lisps. Why choose slope over something like racket or
           | maybe clojure(script)?
        
             | empressplay wrote:
             | It seems like it's halfway between those things and Logo.
             | 
             | So, simpler but with some modern paradigms thrown in to
             | make it more 'respectable'...
        
             | capableweb wrote:
             | > It's a lisp, so it's eminently hackable
             | 
             | Correct me if I'm wrong, but it's missing one vital lisp
             | feature for making it actually hackable: macros!
             | 
             | Couldn't find anything about it in the docs and couldn't
             | search the source code for it either, via their git webpage
             | either.
        
               | dgb23 wrote:
               | Meta programming is still "trivial" (for the lack of a
               | better word) in a lisp without using macros.
        
       | bitwize wrote:
       | Tell me you wrote a Scheme implementation without telling me you
       | wrote a Scheme implementation.
        
         | vincent-manis wrote:
         | I am not prepared to make fun of this project, as other
         | commenters have. It may or may not be a proper Scheme subset
         | (it probably isn't). That said, it may have some use, by
         | "hobbyists" (whatever that may mean, remember that Linus
         | Torvalds originally called Linux a hobby), or even a wider
         | audience. It may serve as a gateway drug to Scheme, Racket, and
         | Common Lisp.
         | 
         | As for no macros, that does limit its appeal to Schemers,
         | Racketeers, and Lispers. That said, while a crude define-macro
         | implementation isn't that difficult, once you have an
         | interpreter that can be run at compile time, Scheme define-
         | syntax macros are quite difficult to implement properly. I can
         | understand why they might have been left out.
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | samatman wrote:
       | A lexically scoped, dynamically typed, s-expression language,
       | with no macros.
       | 
       | Why?
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | phyrex wrote:
       | How is this different from any other scheme?
        
         | [deleted]
        
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       (page generated 2022-06-17 23:00 UTC)