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The ML family languages are still so far ahead of "mainstream" languages in many ways. The first language I ever really learned was SML, my freshman year of col

The ML family languages are still so far ahead of "mainstream" languages in many ways. The first language I ever really learned was SML, my freshman year of college, and I swear there's still a part of me that reaches for "case", even after 15 years and about 1m lines of Java. I've been playing around with an implementation of the ML semantics+type system, using the Go AST as a compilation target. Golang makes a surprisingly great compilation target for a functional language, because Go itself doesn't have any object-oriented baggage. I think there's real potential for a functional companion to Go, much like F#::C# and Scala::Java.

kornish 8y ago
Totally agree, and would love to see something with Go interop gain serious adoption. Thought it might have been Oden [1] for a while, but the project seems to have petered out. [1]: http://oden-lang.github.io/ http://oden-lang.github.io/
- tybit 8y ago
  That’s a real shame. Everything about the go runtime is great, which is in complete contrast to the language itself imo.
jnbiche 8y ago
> I've been playing around with an implementation of the ML semantics+type system Sounds cool. Is it open source? I've attempted to write some ML interpreters and compilers, but I've always hit a brick while when I try to move from a basic "mini-ML" type of language -- which is relatively straight forward -- to one including pattern matching.
- georgewfraser 8y ago
  It's here [1]. I've made some good progress on the typechecker while on vaca. Still looking for a better name : ) [1] https://github.com/georgewfraser/funlang https://github.com/georgewfraser/funlang
nikofeyn 8y ago
it is truly amazing to me that an ML language never made it mainstream. an OOP-enabled ML like F# or Ocaml beats the pants off of the likes of something like python, but here we are where python is taking over the world. and everyone else is clinging to java and c++. f# and ocaml aren’t even hard to learn! i mean, one can learn Standard ML in a couple of weeks using dan grossman’s programming languages course! i understand, f# and sml and even some scala after just some small reading. but i took a semester long course in c++ and never understood it.
- vram11 8y ago
  >an OOP-enabled ML like F# or Ocaml beats the pants off of the likes of something like python Can you explain why you think so?
  - pjmlp 8y ago
    Just the very facts that they compile to native code, use type inference, pattern matching does it.
    - vram22 8y ago
      Thanks.
  - ernst_klim 8y ago
    Decently typed, fast (immensely faster then python), the languages are based on a concise and sound theory and most of newly added features are just sugar over this concepts (like objects and polymorphic variants are just a products of subtyping feature in ocaml), unlike python, where features are monkey patches.
    - vram22 8y ago
      Thanks.
  - nikofeyn 8y ago
    well python is often loved for how clean it is. however, i believe f# (or any ml dialect) is much cleaner than python in terms of syntax. and not only is it cleaner, it is more consistent, which is due to its ml ancestry. python is often loved for how it allows people to express solutions to their problems. however, f# allows much more expression that python has explicitly chosen to disallow. for example, f# is every bit as capable if not more capable as an oop language than python (see .net generics and ecosystem), but it also has functional programming features. if you have never programmed in a language with discriminated unions and pattern patching, you really should try. just look at people implementing ideas and compilers in f#, ocaml, or sml. using pattern matching and union types, it almost looks trivial. it looks as those they're just writing out a description of what they're trying to solve, and then bam, it's done. and i like f# out of these because of the .net platform and how it has embraced its multi-paradigm nature in a very graceful way. python is a very pedestrian language. that is probably the secret to its popularity. it makes people who have put no study into programming languages feel great because they're able to accomplish things quickly, at least at the start. however, they are missing a lot, in my opinion by sticking with python. there is nothing, from my perspective, that python has that f# doesn't or couldn't have. and the reverse of that is explicitly not true. ml and lisp/scheme are two of the greatest programming language approaches and paradigms, and python chose and continues to choose to ignore both of them.

kornish 8y ago

Totally agree, and would love to see something with Go interop gain serious adoption. Thought it might have been Oden [1] for a while, but the project seems to have petered out. [1]: http://oden-lang.github.io/ http://oden-lang.github.io/

tybit 8y ago
That’s a real shame. Everything about the go runtime is great, which is in complete contrast to the language itself imo.

jnbiche 8y ago

> I've been playing around with an implementation of the ML semantics+type system Sounds cool. Is it open source? I've attempted to write some ML interpreters and compilers, but I've always hit a brick while when I try to move from a basic "mini-ML" type of language -- which is relatively straight forward -- to one including pattern matching.

georgewfraser 8y ago
It's here [1]. I've made some good progress on the typechecker while on vaca. Still looking for a better name : ) [1] https://github.com/georgewfraser/funlang https://github.com/georgewfraser/funlang

nikofeyn 8y ago

it is truly amazing to me that an ML language never made it mainstream. an OOP-enabled ML like F# or Ocaml beats the pants off of the likes of something like python, but here we are where python is taking over the world. and everyone else is clinging to java and c++. f# and ocaml aren’t even hard to learn! i mean, one can learn Standard ML in a couple of weeks using dan grossman’s programming languages course! i understand, f# and sml and even some scala after just some small reading. but i took a semester long course in c++ and never understood it.

vram11 8y ago
>an OOP-enabled ML like F# or Ocaml beats the pants off of the likes of something like python Can you explain why you think so?
- pjmlp 8y ago
  Just the very facts that they compile to native code, use type inference, pattern matching does it.
  - vram22 8y ago
    Thanks.
- ernst_klim 8y ago
  Decently typed, fast (immensely faster then python), the languages are based on a concise and sound theory and most of newly added features are just sugar over this concepts (like objects and polymorphic variants are just a products of subtyping feature in ocaml), unlike python, where features are monkey patches.
  - vram22 8y ago
    Thanks.
- nikofeyn 8y ago
  well python is often loved for how clean it is. however, i believe f# (or any ml dialect) is much cleaner than python in terms of syntax. and not only is it cleaner, it is more consistent, which is due to its ml ancestry. python is often loved for how it allows people to express solutions to their problems. however, f# allows much more expression that python has explicitly chosen to disallow. for example, f# is every bit as capable if not more capable as an oop language than python (see .net generics and ecosystem), but it also has functional programming features. if you have never programmed in a language with discriminated unions and pattern patching, you really should try. just look at people implementing ideas and compilers in f#, ocaml, or sml. using pattern matching and union types, it almost looks trivial. it looks as those they're just writing out a description of what they're trying to solve, and then bam, it's done. and i like f# out of these because of the .net platform and how it has embraced its multi-paradigm nature in a very graceful way. python is a very pedestrian language. that is probably the secret to its popularity. it makes people who have put no study into programming languages feel great because they're able to accomplish things quickly, at least at the start. however, they are missing a lot, in my opinion by sticking with python. there is nothing, from my perspective, that python has that f# doesn't or couldn't have. and the reverse of that is explicitly not true. ml and lisp/scheme are two of the greatest programming language approaches and paradigms, and python chose and continues to choose to ignore both of them.