4 ms·

SPL: A programming language coding in a grid

35 points by jinqueeny 2y ago

j-pb 2y ago
And yet in all the examples the code seems to be overflowing the grid.
sidpatil 2y ago
Interesting that they avoided mentioning the term "spreadsheet" entirely.
- kragen 2y ago
  yeah, i'd think the way to write this page would be to lead off with how exactly it's similar to and different from libreoffice calc or some other spreadsheet people are familiar with. instead they explain the similarities as if it's 01977 and the audience has never used a spreadsheet. if there are differences, i gave up on reading before i got to them
  - hnlmorg 2y ago
    I’m glad you posted this because I assumed they were using Excel or LibreOffice. Because of the way they’d written that article, it hadn’t even occurred to me they weren’t using a spreadsheet.
    - kragen 2y ago
      i think they are, it's just that the spreadsheet they're using is one they wrote themselves
thrtythreeforty 2y ago
> the variable has to be given a meaningful name, which is annoying Not naming the variable is annoying to everyone except the original programmer. Variable names are a feature of existing code.
- munk-a 2y ago
  Honestly - even arbitrary variable names are more to my liking than positional references. LOC tends to be an extremely unstable thing to reference and would make refactoring a royal pain.
  - tomsmeding 2y ago
    They argue that this is not a problem because the IDE automatically renumbers cell references. Yes, we definitely need more textual (yes, SPL is textual IMO) languages that cannot be sensibly edited without the official IDE. (I'll make an exception for actually visual programming languages, because we don't have a good interoperable format for those.)
- hnlmorg 2y ago
  Yeah, I thought that was a rather strange argument too. I mean, there have been occasions when I’ve spent more time pontificating over the naming conventions inside a function than I have writing that function. But that’s been long lasting functions that needed to be easy for others to read. Calling the lack of variable naming “feature” is just weird.
rgrieselhuber 2y ago
So, spreadsheets?
munk-a 2y ago
Just as a note on naming - the namespace of SPL is already incredibly overloaded so the searchability will be quite poor. It's used (IMO misguidedly) by Splunk and has an older meaning in "System Programming Language" which used to be a pretty wide term to cover any architecture specific functionality activated by library from higher language (i.e. C) or directly through assembly. Granted, amusingly enough, for a language that specifically tries to account for the difficulty in naming variables, it is extremely fitting that the language is, itself, poorly named.
tomsmeding 2y ago
For disappointed readers expecting a language that actually works in a grid, the original 2D programming language, Befunge: https://esolangs.org/wiki/Befunge https://esolangs.org/wiki/Befunge There are more, such as ><> https://esolangs.org/wiki/Fish https://esolangs.org/wiki/Fish and MarioLANG https://esolangs.org/wiki/MarioLANG https://esolangs.org/wiki/MarioLANG .

35 points by jinqueeny 2y ago

j-pb 2y ago

And yet in all the examples the code seems to be overflowing the grid.

sidpatil 2y ago

Interesting that they avoided mentioning the term "spreadsheet" entirely.

kragen 2y ago
yeah, i'd think the way to write this page would be to lead off with how exactly it's similar to and different from libreoffice calc or some other spreadsheet people are familiar with. instead they explain the similarities as if it's 01977 and the audience has never used a spreadsheet. if there are differences, i gave up on reading before i got to them
- hnlmorg 2y ago
  I’m glad you posted this because I assumed they were using Excel or LibreOffice. Because of the way they’d written that article, it hadn’t even occurred to me they weren’t using a spreadsheet.
  - kragen 2y ago
    i think they are, it's just that the spreadsheet they're using is one they wrote themselves

thrtythreeforty 2y ago

> the variable has to be given a meaningful name, which is annoying Not naming the variable is annoying to everyone except the original programmer. Variable names are a feature of existing code.

munk-a 2y ago
Honestly - even arbitrary variable names are more to my liking than positional references. LOC tends to be an extremely unstable thing to reference and would make refactoring a royal pain.
- tomsmeding 2y ago
  They argue that this is not a problem because the IDE automatically renumbers cell references. Yes, we definitely need more textual (yes, SPL is textual IMO) languages that cannot be sensibly edited without the official IDE. (I'll make an exception for actually visual programming languages, because we don't have a good interoperable format for those.)
hnlmorg 2y ago
Yeah, I thought that was a rather strange argument too. I mean, there have been occasions when I’ve spent more time pontificating over the naming conventions inside a function than I have writing that function. But that’s been long lasting functions that needed to be easy for others to read. Calling the lack of variable naming “feature” is just weird.

rgrieselhuber 2y ago

So, spreadsheets?

munk-a 2y ago

Just as a note on naming - the namespace of SPL is already incredibly overloaded so the searchability will be quite poor. It's used (IMO misguidedly) by Splunk and has an older meaning in "System Programming Language" which used to be a pretty wide term to cover any architecture specific functionality activated by library from higher language (i.e. C) or directly through assembly. Granted, amusingly enough, for a language that specifically tries to account for the difficulty in naming variables, it is extremely fitting that the language is, itself, poorly named.

tomsmeding 2y ago

For disappointed readers expecting a language that actually works in a grid, the original 2D programming language, Befunge: https://esolangs.org/wiki/Befunge https://esolangs.org/wiki/Befunge There are more, such as ><> https://esolangs.org/wiki/Fish https://esolangs.org/wiki/Fish and MarioLANG https://esolangs.org/wiki/MarioLANG https://esolangs.org/wiki/MarioLANG .