5 ms·

Yes, this is very close to what I envision. It would be very cool to get a computer where you can instantly boot up and program on with the same ease as PET BAS

Yes, this is very close to what I envision. It would be very cool to get a computer where you can instantly boot up and program on with the same ease as PET BASIC or QBASIC, yet have all the power of modern hardware at your disposal.

jakub_h 10y ago
You mean something like Oberon?
- throwaway7645 10y ago
  Probably that or maybe TempleOS. TempleOS comes with a C-compiler and it's own C like shell language. All the work of one man. There is always HaikuOS too.
walterbell 10y ago
Carl Sassenrath, the Amiga OS architect has been working on a new language for the last 20 years: http://www.rebol.com http://www.rebol.com It has been cloned: http://www.red-lang.org/p/about.html http://www.red-lang.org/p/about.html Both are open-source. Red has a Windows GUI and the OSX GUI is close. The language ranges from high-level DSLs to system programming.
- throwaway7645 10y ago
  A footnote to those interested: REBOL never really made it because it was closed source and cost some $ back when Perl was super popular even though the language had some amazing DSLs. Making a GUI is a built in one-liner. It was also slow (only interpreted). Red is that language, plus ability to JIT, and do native code. You can mix and match native and interpreted code too. Use types when and where you want. It has no installation. Just an exe that is a few MB. It can create super tiny executables too. I cannot wait for it to get to 1.0.
- gavanwoolery 10y ago
  Rebol and Red are both interesting to me for their given purposes. My desires for a language are somewhat self-contradicting. On one hand, I want a language as simple as possible, with as few paradigms as possible, and as close to the metal as possible (or at least the ability to compile it down to something with C-equivalent performance). This would encompass the core of the language. On the other hand, the language would have a wide variety of built-in libraries for UI, access to graphics hardware, networking, input, etc. The language's paradigms would also be easily extensible, perhaps as an added layer of compilation / meta programming.
  - walterbell 10y ago
    Take a look at http://terralang.org http://terralang.org (low-level) and http://ebblang.org http://ebblang.org (DSL), both related to Lua, via meta-programming and LLVM.
    - gavanwoolery 10y ago
      I've toyed with both languages, and they are only slightly off from something I have been looking for. One of my pet projects right now is a language that can be compiled to and/or simultaneously interpreted within C++, with minimal overhead or dependencies (just a small single header file). No need for LLVM, although I debated using it myself.
BjoernKW 10y ago
I wrote about this half a year ago: https://bjoernkw.com/2016/03/13/load81/ https://bjoernkw.com/2016/03/13/load81/ "Because the C64 boots directly into BASIC the main user interface of the machine is an easily accessible programming environment." Though I only realised it on a subliminal level back then, booting your computer and being able to program it right from the boot prompt with immediate feedback was one of the magical properties of the C64 and to some extent the Amiga. In a way you could say these computers offered the first general purpose REPL. This property is severely lacking from every mainstream OS nowadays, which of course is intentional because for the most part these operating systems target consumers and hence quite understandably try to hide perceived complexity at all costs. Ironically, the environment that comes closest to these early desktop programming environments is Microsoft Excel. In fact, my father (whom I'm incredibly grateful for introducing me to computers at a young age) although not a programmer by profession used to develop business applications on his C64 while just a few years later he resorted to Excel for the same tasks, which in some ways of course made things easier but also was limited in what you could do with it. I'm quite sure a modern, well-designed programming environment in that vein would be conducive to both business application development and education.
- gavanwoolery 10y ago
  I remember reading your article when it was first published. :) Sometimes in attempting to hide complexity we introduce further complexity. For example, many modern IDEs make some tasks more difficult than they need to be, when editing a text file would suffice (and provides more programmatic flexibility). I think that it probably is too harsh to boot into a terminal, but to make a terminal readily available for users with a friendly programming interface would not hurt - and this exists in some form today but still lacks the magic of QBASIC/etc.

jakub_h 10y ago

You mean something like Oberon?

throwaway7645 10y ago
Probably that or maybe TempleOS. TempleOS comes with a C-compiler and it's own C like shell language. All the work of one man. There is always HaikuOS too.

walterbell 10y ago

Carl Sassenrath, the Amiga OS architect has been working on a new language for the last 20 years: http://www.rebol.com http://www.rebol.com It has been cloned: http://www.red-lang.org/p/about.html http://www.red-lang.org/p/about.html Both are open-source. Red has a Windows GUI and the OSX GUI is close. The language ranges from high-level DSLs to system programming.

throwaway7645 10y ago
A footnote to those interested: REBOL never really made it because it was closed source and cost some $ back when Perl was super popular even though the language had some amazing DSLs. Making a GUI is a built in one-liner. It was also slow (only interpreted). Red is that language, plus ability to JIT, and do native code. You can mix and match native and interpreted code too. Use types when and where you want. It has no installation. Just an exe that is a few MB. It can create super tiny executables too. I cannot wait for it to get to 1.0.
gavanwoolery 10y ago
Rebol and Red are both interesting to me for their given purposes. My desires for a language are somewhat self-contradicting. On one hand, I want a language as simple as possible, with as few paradigms as possible, and as close to the metal as possible (or at least the ability to compile it down to something with C-equivalent performance). This would encompass the core of the language. On the other hand, the language would have a wide variety of built-in libraries for UI, access to graphics hardware, networking, input, etc. The language's paradigms would also be easily extensible, perhaps as an added layer of compilation / meta programming.
- walterbell 10y ago
  Take a look at http://terralang.org http://terralang.org (low-level) and http://ebblang.org http://ebblang.org (DSL), both related to Lua, via meta-programming and LLVM.
  - gavanwoolery 10y ago
    I've toyed with both languages, and they are only slightly off from something I have been looking for. One of my pet projects right now is a language that can be compiled to and/or simultaneously interpreted within C++, with minimal overhead or dependencies (just a small single header file). No need for LLVM, although I debated using it myself.

BjoernKW 10y ago

I wrote about this half a year ago: https://bjoernkw.com/2016/03/13/load81/ https://bjoernkw.com/2016/03/13/load81/ "Because the C64 boots directly into BASIC the main user interface of the machine is an easily accessible programming environment." Though I only realised it on a subliminal level back then, booting your computer and being able to program it right from the boot prompt with immediate feedback was one of the magical properties of the C64 and to some extent the Amiga. In a way you could say these computers offered the first general purpose REPL. This property is severely lacking from every mainstream OS nowadays, which of course is intentional because for the most part these operating systems target consumers and hence quite understandably try to hide perceived complexity at all costs. Ironically, the environment that comes closest to these early desktop programming environments is Microsoft Excel. In fact, my father (whom I'm incredibly grateful for introducing me to computers at a young age) although not a programmer by profession used to develop business applications on his C64 while just a few years later he resorted to Excel for the same tasks, which in some ways of course made things easier but also was limited in what you could do with it. I'm quite sure a modern, well-designed programming environment in that vein would be conducive to both business application development and education.

gavanwoolery 10y ago
I remember reading your article when it was first published. :) Sometimes in attempting to hide complexity we introduce further complexity. For example, many modern IDEs make some tasks more difficult than they need to be, when editing a text file would suffice (and provides more programmatic flexibility). I think that it probably is too harsh to boot into a terminal, but to make a terminal readily available for users with a friendly programming interface would not hurt - and this exists in some form today but still lacks the magic of QBASIC/etc.