7 ms·

Crystal 1.9.1

112 points by mikece 3y ago

revskill 3y ago
My blame of Crystal is still lacking of discriminated union (like in Rust) and the hard to use macros system (while powerful) Other than that, it's powerful.
- rddbs 3y ago
  There are union types, which despite being untagged might be enough in a lot of situations, and I believe has language support in things like switch statements. https://crystal-lang.org/reference/latest/syntax_and_semantics/union_types.html https://crystal-lang.org/reference/latest/syntax_and_semanti...
  - yxhuvud 3y ago
    Crystal union types are tagged as the actual type a variable contains is tracked. I honestly have no idea how anything could work if they were not tagged. Like how on earth would you know what method to invoke?
    - andyferris 3y ago
      You should look into the union keyword in C :) (Basically the programmer has to figure out how discrimination works - you’re kinda on your own).
      - yxhuvud 3y ago
        But eh, that is not the case in crystal. You are not on your own - the language knows what a variable is during runtime and you have plenty of ways to dispatch between the types.
Alifatisk 3y ago
"The changes are fixes for minor regression bugs in the standard library and library."
jimbob45 3y ago
I wanted to like Crystal but the documentation was heavily lacking. Even BeefLang had better documentation and that seems to be the brainchild of one single man.
- Corsome 3y ago
  Is it really a one man show? It looks like Beef Lang has excellent home page https://www.beeflang.org/ https://www.beeflang.org/ and I never heard about it until now.
  - jimbob45 3y ago
    It's C# with some really nice additions for game development and a bespoke IDE. Allegedly, the guy who used to be the CTO for PopCap Games is the man leading the way.
  - neonsunset 3y ago
    Did the author accidentally stole C# source code from 2028 and rewrote it to C++ with LLVM back-end? (removing certain features like async/await :D)
- sprobertson 3y ago
  Agreed, docs are oddly organized and some of the most interesting parts like concurrency/fibers only have a single page dedicated to them. I liked the idea of the language enough to try it for Advent of Code this year, and had to rely mostly on the API reference (which is actually solid). Seems like an easy win for them to improve the structure of the guides/docs to get more users.
unshavedyak 3y ago
This is neat. Who is making the most interesting (and realistically viable, ie not just a research lang) language in this space? Eg, for me (! no language wars intended.. oof) there is: 1. Rust for if i want something C++-esque. Rich stdlib & crates, i love it. My primary language for everything. 2. Zig for if i need C. Interesting language, but i can't speak from personal experience. Seems to be gaining a lot of traction, makes nice choices, feature rich in the right places, etc. 3. ??? for when i want Python. I'm asking about #3. Who (if anyone?) is making an attempt at "new and better Python"? .. and yes i know, all these languages i mentioned, including Python, are not dead, are loved by millions, and are all very productive. My statements are not implying that they are anything but amazing. Please don't yell at me :)
- cassiogo 3y ago
  https://nim-lang.org/ https://nim-lang.org/ for #3 probably
- modernerd 3y ago
  Mojo is one to keep an eye on for #3. https://docs.modular.com/mojo/ https://docs.modular.com/mojo/
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- rookderby 3y ago
  For #3, I think Python is working on making a better python. I have some 'lingua franca' projects at work. Python projects are easy to hand off and the the iterations are getting faster. Most of these projects are currently in python 3.9, but i'm looking forward to the speed increases that 3.11 will bring.
  - mbb70 3y ago
    Agreed, much like Java turned out to be the next evolution of Java. Python is the the 'good enough at everything + huge ecosystem' language that you can't replace no matter how much cooler the concurrency paradigm.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
Malp 3y ago
Happy to see this here; I found it to be a fun language to prototype reasonably performant things in + for learning about certain data structures. I expect to see the comments talking about the lack of docs, language server struggles, and compilation times (the whole stdlib and program is compiled from scratch every time a program is compiled/run, IIRC). The language is slowly growing and I encourage people to stick with its onboarding shortcomings and giving it a shot for their next project.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
Alifatisk 3y ago
Keep growing Crystal, I am proud of you!
phendrenad2 3y ago
1.9.1 was a version of Ruby that I used for awhile. Does this have some connection to that version, or is it an homage, or is it just a coincidence?
Daegalus 3y ago
I really like Crystal but until the devtools improve, it's a bit of a pain to write Crystal without a fully function LSP. Crystalline does an amazing job, but there are still some shortcomings that need to be taken care of by the main language devs to help the LSP come along better. Other than that Crystal is fantastic and I hope to use it more in the future
rakoo 3y ago
I'm liking crystal more and more. I'm only dabbling with it, writing small improvements, but it gives me back that sens of joy and happiness when I started programming with ruby.Not a mystery, really. Thanks team !

112 points by mikece 3y ago

My blame of Crystal is still lacking of discriminated union (like in Rust) and the hard to use macros system (while powerful) Other than that, it's powerful.

rddbs 3y ago
There are union types, which despite being untagged might be enough in a lot of situations, and I believe has language support in things like switch statements. https://crystal-lang.org/reference/latest/syntax_and_semantics/union_types.html https://crystal-lang.org/reference/latest/syntax_and_semanti...
- yxhuvud 3y ago
  Crystal union types are tagged as the actual type a variable contains is tracked. I honestly have no idea how anything could work if they were not tagged. Like how on earth would you know what method to invoke?
  - andyferris 3y ago
    You should look into the union keyword in C :) (Basically the programmer has to figure out how discrimination works - you’re kinda on your own).
    - yxhuvud 3y ago
      But eh, that is not the case in crystal. You are not on your own - the language knows what a variable is during runtime and you have plenty of ways to dispatch between the types.

Alifatisk 3y ago

"The changes are fixes for minor regression bugs in the standard library and library."

jimbob45 3y ago

I wanted to like Crystal but the documentation was heavily lacking. Even BeefLang had better documentation and that seems to be the brainchild of one single man.

Corsome 3y ago
Is it really a one man show? It looks like Beef Lang has excellent home page https://www.beeflang.org/ https://www.beeflang.org/ and I never heard about it until now.
- jimbob45 3y ago
  It's C# with some really nice additions for game development and a bespoke IDE. Allegedly, the guy who used to be the CTO for PopCap Games is the man leading the way.
- neonsunset 3y ago
  Did the author accidentally stole C# source code from 2028 and rewrote it to C++ with LLVM back-end? (removing certain features like async/await :D)
sprobertson 3y ago
Agreed, docs are oddly organized and some of the most interesting parts like concurrency/fibers only have a single page dedicated to them. I liked the idea of the language enough to try it for Advent of Code this year, and had to rely mostly on the API reference (which is actually solid). Seems like an easy win for them to improve the structure of the guides/docs to get more users.

unshavedyak 3y ago

This is neat. Who is making the most interesting (and realistically viable, ie not just a research lang) language in this space? Eg, for me (! no language wars intended.. oof) there is: 1. Rust for if i want something C++-esque. Rich stdlib & crates, i love it. My primary language for everything. 2. Zig for if i need C. Interesting language, but i can't speak from personal experience. Seems to be gaining a lot of traction, makes nice choices, feature rich in the right places, etc. 3. ??? for when i want Python. I'm asking about #3. Who (if anyone?) is making an attempt at "new and better Python"? .. and yes i know, all these languages i mentioned, including Python, are not dead, are loved by millions, and are all very productive. My statements are not implying that they are anything but amazing. Please don't yell at me :)

cassiogo 3y ago
https://nim-lang.org/ https://nim-lang.org/ for #3 probably
modernerd 3y ago
Mojo is one to keep an eye on for #3. https://docs.modular.com/mojo/ https://docs.modular.com/mojo/
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
rookderby 3y ago
For #3, I think Python is working on making a better python. I have some 'lingua franca' projects at work. Python projects are easy to hand off and the the iterations are getting faster. Most of these projects are currently in python 3.9, but i'm looking forward to the speed increases that 3.11 will bring.
- mbb70 3y ago
  Agreed, much like Java turned out to be the next evolution of Java. Python is the the 'good enough at everything + huge ecosystem' language that you can't replace no matter how much cooler the concurrency paradigm.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

Malp 3y ago

Happy to see this here; I found it to be a fun language to prototype reasonably performant things in + for learning about certain data structures. I expect to see the comments talking about the lack of docs, language server struggles, and compilation times (the whole stdlib and program is compiled from scratch every time a program is compiled/run, IIRC). The language is slowly growing and I encourage people to stick with its onboarding shortcomings and giving it a shot for their next project.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

Alifatisk 3y ago

Keep growing Crystal, I am proud of you!

phendrenad2 3y ago

1.9.1 was a version of Ruby that I used for awhile. Does this have some connection to that version, or is it an homage, or is it just a coincidence?

Daegalus 3y ago

I really like Crystal but until the devtools improve, it's a bit of a pain to write Crystal without a fully function LSP. Crystalline does an amazing job, but there are still some shortcomings that need to be taken care of by the main language devs to help the LSP come along better. Other than that Crystal is fantastic and I hope to use it more in the future

rakoo 3y ago

I'm liking crystal more and more. I'm only dabbling with it, writing small improvements, but it gives me back that sens of joy and happiness when I started programming with ruby.Not a mystery, really. Thanks team !