7 ms·

Avelon: Turing complete, functional language with concatenative combinators

77 points by jxub 8y ago

jameskegel 8y ago
Awelon, not Avelon.
tombert 8y ago
So, as a complete noob with stuff like Forth and other concatenative stuff, can someone explain why they'd use it, and how something like Avelon would be cool? I've read a bit about being able to avoid generating garbage, but I have to admit a bit of ignorance to what that actually means.
rhacker 8y ago
The github page seems to be calling it Awelon not Avelon
- jxub 8y ago
  Yep, sorry for the typo... It's impossible to edit by now though :/
nickpsecurity 8y ago
The build-up-from-little-pieces style of Forth meets the terseness of the APL family in this functional, programming language. That's my impression. I don't use any of those, though. I recognize author from Lambda the Ultimate. I emailed him to see if he wants to tell us more about this.
CuriousSkeptic 8y ago
Make sure to checkout the blog https://awelonblue.wordpress.com/about/ https://awelonblue.wordpress.com/about/ It has been a source of much inspiration to me for many years.
nine_k 8y ago
A comparison with [Factor] would be very welcome. [Factor]: https://factorcode.org/ https://factorcode.org/
cubano 8y ago
Could someone please inform me...under what domain does such abstract esoteric language make programming either easier or more efficient?
- goldfishparty 8y ago
  Once you understand the documentation, other language's documentation becomes easier to understand.
- tathougies 8y ago
  Concatenative languages are really not esoteric. I mean assembly language is a concatenative language, and it really ought not to qualify as esoteric.
  - e12e 8y ago
    > assembly language is a concatenative language Are most? I've always considered them more procedural than anything else. Variables and gotos.
    - yorwba 8y ago
      Concatenative just means that concatenating two programs yields a new program and that is the major method of program construction. Most Forth dialects also support variables, gotos and procedures; but it's all in a concatenative way.
      - e12e 8y ago
        Is that so? According to: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concatenative_programming_language https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concatenative_programming_la... there's a little more to it. I suppose if you squint a bit, any push-jump-ret-pop sequence is concatenative - but I'm not sure if I agree that the main way to go from a few general assembly language programs that each read from a file, count words, and sums integers - to a program that counts words in a file is to simply concatenate them?
  - 8y ago
carapace 8y ago
Reminds me a bit of Joy[1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joy_(programming_language) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joy_(programming_language)

77 points by jxub 8y ago

Awelon, not Avelon.

So, as a complete noob with stuff like Forth and other concatenative stuff, can someone explain why they'd use it, and how something like Avelon would be cool? I've read a bit about being able to avoid generating garbage, but I have to admit a bit of ignorance to what that actually means.

rhacker 8y ago

The github page seems to be calling it Awelon not Avelon

jxub 8y ago
Yep, sorry for the typo... It's impossible to edit by now though :/

nickpsecurity 8y ago

The build-up-from-little-pieces style of Forth meets the terseness of the APL family in this functional, programming language. That's my impression. I don't use any of those, though. I recognize author from Lambda the Ultimate. I emailed him to see if he wants to tell us more about this.

CuriousSkeptic 8y ago

Make sure to checkout the blog https://awelonblue.wordpress.com/about/ https://awelonblue.wordpress.com/about/ It has been a source of much inspiration to me for many years.

nine_k 8y ago

A comparison with [Factor] would be very welcome. [Factor]: https://factorcode.org/ https://factorcode.org/

cubano 8y ago

Could someone please inform me...under what domain does such abstract esoteric language make programming either easier or more efficient?

goldfishparty 8y ago
Once you understand the documentation, other language's documentation becomes easier to understand.
tathougies 8y ago
Concatenative languages are really not esoteric. I mean assembly language is a concatenative language, and it really ought not to qualify as esoteric.
- e12e 8y ago
  > assembly language is a concatenative language Are most? I've always considered them more procedural than anything else. Variables and gotos.
  - yorwba 8y ago
    Concatenative just means that concatenating two programs yields a new program and that is the major method of program construction. Most Forth dialects also support variables, gotos and procedures; but it's all in a concatenative way.
    - e12e 8y ago
      Is that so? According to: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concatenative_programming_language https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concatenative_programming_la... there's a little more to it. I suppose if you squint a bit, any push-jump-ret-pop sequence is concatenative - but I'm not sure if I agree that the main way to go from a few general assembly language programs that each read from a file, count words, and sums integers - to a program that counts words in a file is to simply concatenate them?
- 8y ago

carapace 8y ago

Reminds me a bit of Joy[1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joy_(programming_language) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joy_(programming_language)