4 ms·

Yeah, but what is it? > The Bosque programming language is a breakthrough research project from Microsoft Research. Tells me nothing useful about it. > Bosqu

Yeah, but what is it? > The Bosque programming language is a breakthrough research project from Microsoft Research. Tells me nothing useful about it. > Bosque simultaneously supports a high productivity development experience expected by modern cloud developers, coming from say a TypeScript/Node stack, It's a web language then? > while also providing a resource efficient and predictable runtime with a performance profile similar to a native C++ application Or a back-end dev language? Come on, what is it for?

norswap 6y ago
Does a language really have to aim for a specific use case?
- thrower123 6y ago
  It would be good for its own sake to provide some motivation for why you'd bother using it over the dozen established alternatives with mature ecosystems and tooling.
  - TomMarius 6y ago
    It's a language research project. > In the Bosque project we ask the question of what happens if the IR is designed explicitly to support the rich needs of automated code reasoning, IDE tooling, etc. With this novel IR first perspective we are exploring a new way to think about and build a language intermediate representation and tools that utilize it. Our initial experiments show that this empowers a range of next-generation experiences including symbolic-testing, enhanced fuzzing, soft-realtime compilation with stable GC support, API auto-marshaling, and more!
    - throwaway_pdp09 6y ago
      Then tell us this. In fact stick it somewhere obvious. Also please talk straight, please don't mention "next-generation experiences", that's just marketing nothingspeak to HN techies. "enhanced fuzzing" - as opposed to what? "soft-realtime compilation" - meaning...? "stable GC support" - oh thank god for that, finally GC is reliable and can be used in production. thankyou thankyou thankyou for banishing GC instability.
      - steveklabnik 6y ago
        > Then tell us this. In fact stick it somewhere obvious. The first sentence of this page: > The Bosque programming language is a breakthrough research project from Microsoft Research. "Microsoft Research" is in italics, even.
        throwaway_pdp09 6y ago
        And I quoted exactly that line. In my first post.
        TomMarius 6y ago
        Why are you asking unrelated questions then? The goal is not to motivate you to use it, especially not you who seem to be uninterested in both the goals and the ways the team has proposed. On the other hand I like the direction - but I am not going to use it on a daily basis either, maybe in a few years.
        throwaway_pdp09 6y ago
        The base question was, what is it for? That is the ultimate purpose of this language. That's not an 'unrelated' question. > The goal is not to motivate you to use it, especially not you who seem to be uninterested in both the goals and the ways the team has proposed I knew neither the goals or nor the ways of this team. Tell me and as a guy interested in languages, I will be interested. > I like the direction So what is the direction? All I'm asking for is information on this project, clearly given and not wrapped up in idiot marketing drivel ("stable GC support" FFS)
- throwaway_pdp09 6y ago
  Yes.
- underdeserver 6y ago
  Yes, for the generic case we have like 6 other languages that have better support, better libraries, better ecosystems, ...
- b3kart 6y ago
  Of course. A language isn't just syntax, it prescribes how and at what level you're solving problems. System programing languages typically expose a lot of the underlying memory management, so you can optimize it. Scripting languages provide high-level primities, specifically so you don't have to think about memory management.
- LudwigNagasena 6y ago
  It has to have at leasat one use case, otherwise it is litearlly useless. At least a use case like "Python but with static types" or "Swift but for Windows".
leke 6y ago
It sounds like MS Rust.
- steveklabnik 6y ago
  Microsoft Research is also working on Verona, which seems closer to Rust than this language, to me anyway.

norswap 6y ago

Does a language really have to aim for a specific use case?

thrower123 6y ago
It would be good for its own sake to provide some motivation for why you'd bother using it over the dozen established alternatives with mature ecosystems and tooling.
- TomMarius 6y ago
  It's a language research project. > In the Bosque project we ask the question of what happens if the IR is designed explicitly to support the rich needs of automated code reasoning, IDE tooling, etc. With this novel IR first perspective we are exploring a new way to think about and build a language intermediate representation and tools that utilize it. Our initial experiments show that this empowers a range of next-generation experiences including symbolic-testing, enhanced fuzzing, soft-realtime compilation with stable GC support, API auto-marshaling, and more!
  - throwaway_pdp09 6y ago
    Then tell us this. In fact stick it somewhere obvious. Also please talk straight, please don't mention "next-generation experiences", that's just marketing nothingspeak to HN techies. "enhanced fuzzing" - as opposed to what? "soft-realtime compilation" - meaning...? "stable GC support" - oh thank god for that, finally GC is reliable and can be used in production. thankyou thankyou thankyou for banishing GC instability.
    - steveklabnik 6y ago
      > Then tell us this. In fact stick it somewhere obvious. The first sentence of this page: > The Bosque programming language is a breakthrough research project from Microsoft Research. "Microsoft Research" is in italics, even.
      - throwaway_pdp09 6y ago
        And I quoted exactly that line. In my first post.
        TomMarius 6y ago
        Why are you asking unrelated questions then? The goal is not to motivate you to use it, especially not you who seem to be uninterested in both the goals and the ways the team has proposed. On the other hand I like the direction - but I am not going to use it on a daily basis either, maybe in a few years.
        throwaway_pdp09 6y ago
        The base question was, what is it for? That is the ultimate purpose of this language. That's not an 'unrelated' question. > The goal is not to motivate you to use it, especially not you who seem to be uninterested in both the goals and the ways the team has proposed I knew neither the goals or nor the ways of this team. Tell me and as a guy interested in languages, I will be interested. > I like the direction So what is the direction? All I'm asking for is information on this project, clearly given and not wrapped up in idiot marketing drivel ("stable GC support" FFS)
throwaway_pdp09 6y ago
Yes.
underdeserver 6y ago
Yes, for the generic case we have like 6 other languages that have better support, better libraries, better ecosystems, ...
b3kart 6y ago
Of course. A language isn't just syntax, it prescribes how and at what level you're solving problems. System programing languages typically expose a lot of the underlying memory management, so you can optimize it. Scripting languages provide high-level primities, specifically so you don't have to think about memory management.
LudwigNagasena 6y ago
It has to have at leasat one use case, otherwise it is litearlly useless. At least a use case like "Python but with static types" or "Swift but for Windows".

leke 6y ago

It sounds like MS Rust.

steveklabnik 6y ago
Microsoft Research is also working on Verona, which seems closer to Rust than this language, to me anyway.