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I have long thought that we need a generic way of expressing foundational library code (datetimes, regex, math, json, http, etc) that could easily be lifted to

I have long thought that we need a generic way of expressing foundational library code (datetimes, regex, math, json, http, etc) that could easily be lifted to other nascent languages. At minimum, the unit tests behind battle-tested packages that have encountered all of the edge cases that a green-field design is going to miss.

fermuch 5y ago
Could webassembly provide that? As far as I understand it can be seen as a target callable from any runtime (C, rust, python, the browser...) so a new language could implement wasm and all its libraries could be used?
- woadwarrior01 5y ago
  This is one of the most promising aspects of GraalVM and Sulong[1]. [1]: https://github.com/oracle/graal/tree/master/sulong https://github.com/oracle/graal/tree/master/sulong
cheriot 5y ago
For many languages isn't that the FFI to C?
- ComputerGuru 5y ago
  Kind of but not really? That requires considerable effort adapting the target for anything written in a language with first-class object support and is woefully unergonomic.
  - cheriot 5y ago
    Agreed C isn't an ergonomic one. A better one would need manual memory management, though, to avoid running an additional gc. In contrast to the target languages, it would need at least as much type information. I haven't worked with Rust, but I wonder if that will move into this space.
kevin_thibedeau 5y ago
There was a time when Parrot was going to be the one ring.
sidpatil 5y ago
If I understand correctly, OpenVMS made this straightforward—it was easy to call code written in one language from code written in another language. What we have today: 1) stick to languages which target a common VM, 2) hope your language supports FFI for the library's language, or 3) microservices, in the old-school fashion (piping to/from Unix binaries) or the new-school fashion (HTTPing JSON to/from containerized applications).

fermuch 5y ago

Could webassembly provide that? As far as I understand it can be seen as a target callable from any runtime (C, rust, python, the browser...) so a new language could implement wasm and all its libraries could be used?

woadwarrior01 5y ago
This is one of the most promising aspects of GraalVM and Sulong[1]. [1]: https://github.com/oracle/graal/tree/master/sulong https://github.com/oracle/graal/tree/master/sulong

cheriot 5y ago

For many languages isn't that the FFI to C?

ComputerGuru 5y ago
Kind of but not really? That requires considerable effort adapting the target for anything written in a language with first-class object support and is woefully unergonomic.
- cheriot 5y ago
  Agreed C isn't an ergonomic one. A better one would need manual memory management, though, to avoid running an additional gc. In contrast to the target languages, it would need at least as much type information. I haven't worked with Rust, but I wonder if that will move into this space.

kevin_thibedeau 5y ago

There was a time when Parrot was going to be the one ring.

sidpatil 5y ago

If I understand correctly, OpenVMS made this straightforward—it was easy to call code written in one language from code written in another language. What we have today: 1) stick to languages which target a common VM, 2) hope your language supports FFI for the library's language, or 3) microservices, in the old-school fashion (piping to/from Unix binaries) or the new-school fashion (HTTPing JSON to/from containerized applications).