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> has there been any useful Programming Language that has come out of PL research/ Academia in the last 20 years? The goal of PL research is not, usually, to

> has there been any useful Programming Language that has come out of PL research/ Academia in the last 20 years? The goal of PL research is not, usually, to produce languages that see commercial adoption but to produce ideas that industry adopts. You cannot say a language like Rust is not influenced by PL research.

sashank_1509 2y ago
No, I can very strongly claim that I doubt any of the modern languages like Rust, Go etc have been influenced by the trainwreck, that is programming language research. PL research today is actually the study of something called “type theory,” whose relation to the act of building programming languages is the same relation a math PhD has to a carpenter. You will be a great mathematician if you do PL research but I would prefer if you do it in the maths department and not con us into believing it has something to do with programming languages. This is apparently what undergrads are taught in a compilers course: https://x.com/deedydas/status/1846366712616403366 https://x.com/deedydas/status/1846366712616403366 I rest my case. (imagine the grad course syllabus) On the fringes, you might find research groups who are doing interesting useful stuff in programming languages, but that is an exception to the rule. Which is probably why, you never hear any of the new language developers ever cite programming language research.
- yodsanklai 2y ago
  There is much more to PL research than "type theory". Look for instance at POPL 2024 program [1]. Also Rust has been influenced by type theory. Rust first compiler was written in OCaml and the influence of OCaml/Haskell (and many other languages [2]) is pretty clear. Goal of PL research isn't to design programming languages but academic research has a lot of influence on programming languages. [1] https://popl24.sigplan.org/program/program-POPL-2024/ https://popl24.sigplan.org/program/program-POPL-2024/ [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34704772 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34704772) Edit: regarding https://x.com/deedydas/status/1846366712616403366?mx=2 https://x.com/deedydas/status/1846366712616403366?mx=2 these are just the formal specs of a type checker. Nothing magic or very complicated there, it's just a notation. Anyone who can understand and implement a type checker should be able to understand this notation as well.
  - sashank_1509 2y ago
    The creator of Rust in his own words: “ Introducing: Rust Rust is a language that mostly cribs from past languages. Nothing new. Unapologetic interest in the static, structured, concurrent, large-systems language niche, Not for scripting, prototyping, or casual hacking, Not for research or exploring a new type system, Concentrates on known ways of achieving: More safety, More concurrency, Less mess, Nothing new? Hardly anything. Maybe a keyword or two, Many older languages better than newer ones: e.g., Mesa (1977), BETA (1975), CLU (1974) … We keep forgetting already-learned lessons., Rust picks from 80s/early 90s languages: Nil (1981), Hermes (1990), Erlang (1987), Sather (1990), Newsqueak (1988), Alef (1995), Limbo (1996), Napier (1985, 1988).” If modern PL research is trying to take credit for the latest hot programming language (which I doubt they are, it’s only internet commentators who have nothing to do with PL research who argue with me. Actual PL researchers don’t care about Rust), they should be embarrassed. Thank you for linking latest PL research, it has been a while since I’ve gone through it, glad to see nothing has changed. Ask yourself, how many of those talks in day 1, have accompanying code? is it even 25%? For giggles I decided to peruse through “Normal bisimulations by Value”. A 54 page dense paper with theorems, equations and lemmas. Lol, what are we even doing here? You can also notice that they don’t bother justifying their research in the intro or the abstract, claiming relevance to any actual programming language. They themselves realize it’s just math, and PL researchers has become a euphemism for math. Frankly, even one such paper being accepted to a PL conference tells me something is going awry in the field, but if a majority of papers are like this, then the field is a wasteland, that only serves to grind young talented minds into spending their lives chasing academic prestige with no value to society.
    - JW_00000 2y ago
      > Ask yourself, how many of those talks in day 1, have accompanying code? is it even 25%? 57 out of 93 papers (61%) published at POPL 24 have an artifact available. Note that this may also be automated proofs etc, it's not necessarily "running code". But I also think focusing on POPL as a representation of the PL community isn't entirely fair. POPL is the primary conference focused on type systems within the PL community. It's a niche within a niche. Conferences like OOPSLA, ECOOP, or ICFP are much broader and much less likely to be so focused on mathematical proofs. [1] https://dl.acm.org/toc/pacmpl/2024/8/POPL https://dl.acm.org/toc/pacmpl/2024/8/POPL
- saagarjha 2y ago
  Have you ever talked to the people who design those languages? Because they will disagree with you about as strongly. And, of course, they are in a position to be correct.
- JW_00000 2y ago
  1. TypeScript (and Dart, which influenced it) would not exist without the research on gradual and optional typing. Many other of the type system features in TypeScript – like type inferencing, intersection and union types, and type-level programming (e.g. conditional types) – find their origin in PL research, and were uncommon in mainstream but common in academic programming languages before TypeScript appeared. 2. Similarly, mypy was created by Jukka Lehtosalo as part of his PhD [1] and part of a wave of research in applying gradual typing to dynamically typed programming languages. 3. Rust's ownership types and borrowing are based on PL research, such as linear logic / linear types. Same for traits. Early Rust even had typestates. 4. Several of the core developers of Rust, Go, TypeScript, C#, Dart, Scala, have a PhD in PL or a background in research. 5. Generics are another feature that was heavily researched in academia (admittedly a longer time ago) before becoming part of mainstream programming languages. So I completely disagree with you: most modern languages have been heavily influenced by programming language research. In fact, I'd be hard-pressed to find a modern PL that hasn't been in some way influenced by PL research. (One thing I agree with in your comment, is that current PL research focuses too heavily on type systems and should look more at other interesting PL features. My recommendation to InkCanon would therefore be to look broader than type systems. The problem with research on type systems is that, because it looks math-y, it feels more like "science" and hence "cures impostor syndrome". But cool stuff can be real science too!) [1] https://mypy-lang.org/about.html https://mypy-lang.org/about.html

sashank_1509 2y ago

No, I can very strongly claim that I doubt any of the modern languages like Rust, Go etc have been influenced by the trainwreck, that is programming language research. PL research today is actually the study of something called “type theory,” whose relation to the act of building programming languages is the same relation a math PhD has to a carpenter. You will be a great mathematician if you do PL research but I would prefer if you do it in the maths department and not con us into believing it has something to do with programming languages. This is apparently what undergrads are taught in a compilers course: https://x.com/deedydas/status/1846366712616403366 https://x.com/deedydas/status/1846366712616403366 I rest my case. (imagine the grad course syllabus) On the fringes, you might find research groups who are doing interesting useful stuff in programming languages, but that is an exception to the rule. Which is probably why, you never hear any of the new language developers ever cite programming language research.

yodsanklai 2y ago
There is much more to PL research than "type theory". Look for instance at POPL 2024 program [1]. Also Rust has been influenced by type theory. Rust first compiler was written in OCaml and the influence of OCaml/Haskell (and many other languages [2]) is pretty clear. Goal of PL research isn't to design programming languages but academic research has a lot of influence on programming languages. [1] https://popl24.sigplan.org/program/program-POPL-2024/ https://popl24.sigplan.org/program/program-POPL-2024/ [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34704772 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34704772) Edit: regarding https://x.com/deedydas/status/1846366712616403366?mx=2 https://x.com/deedydas/status/1846366712616403366?mx=2 these are just the formal specs of a type checker. Nothing magic or very complicated there, it's just a notation. Anyone who can understand and implement a type checker should be able to understand this notation as well.
- sashank_1509 2y ago
  The creator of Rust in his own words: “ Introducing: Rust Rust is a language that mostly cribs from past languages. Nothing new. Unapologetic interest in the static, structured, concurrent, large-systems language niche, Not for scripting, prototyping, or casual hacking, Not for research or exploring a new type system, Concentrates on known ways of achieving: More safety, More concurrency, Less mess, Nothing new? Hardly anything. Maybe a keyword or two, Many older languages better than newer ones: e.g., Mesa (1977), BETA (1975), CLU (1974) … We keep forgetting already-learned lessons., Rust picks from 80s/early 90s languages: Nil (1981), Hermes (1990), Erlang (1987), Sather (1990), Newsqueak (1988), Alef (1995), Limbo (1996), Napier (1985, 1988).” If modern PL research is trying to take credit for the latest hot programming language (which I doubt they are, it’s only internet commentators who have nothing to do with PL research who argue with me. Actual PL researchers don’t care about Rust), they should be embarrassed. Thank you for linking latest PL research, it has been a while since I’ve gone through it, glad to see nothing has changed. Ask yourself, how many of those talks in day 1, have accompanying code? is it even 25%? For giggles I decided to peruse through “Normal bisimulations by Value”. A 54 page dense paper with theorems, equations and lemmas. Lol, what are we even doing here? You can also notice that they don’t bother justifying their research in the intro or the abstract, claiming relevance to any actual programming language. They themselves realize it’s just math, and PL researchers has become a euphemism for math. Frankly, even one such paper being accepted to a PL conference tells me something is going awry in the field, but if a majority of papers are like this, then the field is a wasteland, that only serves to grind young talented minds into spending their lives chasing academic prestige with no value to society.
  - JW_00000 2y ago
    > Ask yourself, how many of those talks in day 1, have accompanying code? is it even 25%? 57 out of 93 papers (61%) published at POPL 24 have an artifact available. Note that this may also be automated proofs etc, it's not necessarily "running code". But I also think focusing on POPL as a representation of the PL community isn't entirely fair. POPL is the primary conference focused on type systems within the PL community. It's a niche within a niche. Conferences like OOPSLA, ECOOP, or ICFP are much broader and much less likely to be so focused on mathematical proofs. [1] https://dl.acm.org/toc/pacmpl/2024/8/POPL https://dl.acm.org/toc/pacmpl/2024/8/POPL
saagarjha 2y ago
Have you ever talked to the people who design those languages? Because they will disagree with you about as strongly. And, of course, they are in a position to be correct.
JW_00000 2y ago
1. TypeScript (and Dart, which influenced it) would not exist without the research on gradual and optional typing. Many other of the type system features in TypeScript – like type inferencing, intersection and union types, and type-level programming (e.g. conditional types) – find their origin in PL research, and were uncommon in mainstream but common in academic programming languages before TypeScript appeared. 2. Similarly, mypy was created by Jukka Lehtosalo as part of his PhD [1] and part of a wave of research in applying gradual typing to dynamically typed programming languages. 3. Rust's ownership types and borrowing are based on PL research, such as linear logic / linear types. Same for traits. Early Rust even had typestates. 4. Several of the core developers of Rust, Go, TypeScript, C#, Dart, Scala, have a PhD in PL or a background in research. 5. Generics are another feature that was heavily researched in academia (admittedly a longer time ago) before becoming part of mainstream programming languages. So I completely disagree with you: most modern languages have been heavily influenced by programming language research. In fact, I'd be hard-pressed to find a modern PL that hasn't been in some way influenced by PL research. (One thing I agree with in your comment, is that current PL research focuses too heavily on type systems and should look more at other interesting PL features. My recommendation to InkCanon would therefore be to look broader than type systems. The problem with research on type systems is that, because it looks math-y, it feels more like "science" and hence "cures impostor syndrome". But cool stuff can be real science too!) [1] https://mypy-lang.org/about.html https://mypy-lang.org/about.html