4 ms·

You should check out Shen[1]. It is a portable functional programming language. Optional type checking and it solves my affair with Lisp and Haskell. It is a Li

by eggy 1y ago

You should check out Shen[1]. It is a portable functional programming language. Optional type checking and it solves my affair with Lisp and Haskell. It is a Lisp. [1] https://shenlanguage.org/ https://shenlanguage.org/

klibertp 1y ago
It needs a lot more good tutorials about its type system. Lacking the background in whatever subfield of math that would help here, I couldn't type my way out of a wet paper bag in it. I'd love a concise, down-to-earth, exposition of the type system "for the working programmer". It's just so different than anything else I know (from Haskell to Prolog) that I had a really hard time understanding Shen's type system.
- eggy 1y ago
  You're right: Shen's mathematical underpinnings (sequent calculus, dependent type theory) can intimidate programmers without a formal logic background. I bought the "The Book of Shen" (TBOS) revision 1 and revision 3. Revision 4 is available on the website. It's a great book with some CS history, logic, and development of Shen from Qi as well as how everything works in Shen including the type system. Shen uses a dependently typed Sequent-Calculus based Type System (SCTS). It uses type rules vs. type classes, and type checking is optional, you can turn it on or off. Haskell's type inference makes things a bit simpler, and is a battle-tested static type system with excellent type inference which lends itself better for functional programming and large-scale software engineering (for the moment). Shen's TC is more expressive, but requires more effort. Aditya Siram has some old but goody YT videos on Shen.
  - klibertp 1y ago
    I wanted to buy it - I don't remember exactly, but I think I couldn't find an e-book version, and the paper one was expensive and didn't even ship to my country :( I hope to be wrong on that, though, do you know if there's an ebook available from somewhere?
    - eggy 1y ago
      Other than the online version (4th edition), I don't know of any other place to get it. Yes, the paperback was expensive, but I bought it anyway. It proved to be very informative and more substantive than I had thought. I believe the 5th edition is almost ready for publication.
      - klibertp 1y ago
        > Other than the online version I'm an idiot. I looked at this page: https://shenlanguage.org/TBoS/tbos.html https://shenlanguage.org/TBoS/tbos.html many times, tried clicking on the table of contents, realized that chapter titles are not links, and went away thinking it's only the ToS for promotional purposes. I only realized that the page numbers are links just now. To my defense, they don't differ in color that much and lack the underline that often marks links. Still, a HUGE facepalm :D Thanks for mentioning this and making me realize my own stupidity :)
        eggy 1y ago
        Glad you found it. I've done much worse, believe me! If you have any questions check out the Google Groups (no Groups comments!) for Shen. I am eager to see the 5th edition, and I will probably buy the print version.
droideqa 1y ago
I had such high hopes for Shen but the licensing shenanigans at the beginning prevented it from having a great, large open source community.
- eggy 1y ago
  It's resolved. I helped support it for a brief time for the SP version, which is now integrated into the latest version. You're right though, that this put many people off.

by eggy 1y ago

klibertp 1y ago

It needs a lot more good tutorials about its type system. Lacking the background in whatever subfield of math that would help here, I couldn't type my way out of a wet paper bag in it. I'd love a concise, down-to-earth, exposition of the type system "for the working programmer". It's just so different than anything else I know (from Haskell to Prolog) that I had a really hard time understanding Shen's type system.

eggy 1y ago
You're right: Shen's mathematical underpinnings (sequent calculus, dependent type theory) can intimidate programmers without a formal logic background. I bought the "The Book of Shen" (TBOS) revision 1 and revision 3. Revision 4 is available on the website. It's a great book with some CS history, logic, and development of Shen from Qi as well as how everything works in Shen including the type system. Shen uses a dependently typed Sequent-Calculus based Type System (SCTS). It uses type rules vs. type classes, and type checking is optional, you can turn it on or off. Haskell's type inference makes things a bit simpler, and is a battle-tested static type system with excellent type inference which lends itself better for functional programming and large-scale software engineering (for the moment). Shen's TC is more expressive, but requires more effort. Aditya Siram has some old but goody YT videos on Shen.
- klibertp 1y ago
  I wanted to buy it - I don't remember exactly, but I think I couldn't find an e-book version, and the paper one was expensive and didn't even ship to my country :( I hope to be wrong on that, though, do you know if there's an ebook available from somewhere?
  - eggy 1y ago
    Other than the online version (4th edition), I don't know of any other place to get it. Yes, the paperback was expensive, but I bought it anyway. It proved to be very informative and more substantive than I had thought. I believe the 5th edition is almost ready for publication.
    - klibertp 1y ago
      > Other than the online version I'm an idiot. I looked at this page: https://shenlanguage.org/TBoS/tbos.html https://shenlanguage.org/TBoS/tbos.html many times, tried clicking on the table of contents, realized that chapter titles are not links, and went away thinking it's only the ToS for promotional purposes. I only realized that the page numbers are links just now. To my defense, they don't differ in color that much and lack the underline that often marks links. Still, a HUGE facepalm :D Thanks for mentioning this and making me realize my own stupidity :)
      - eggy 1y ago
        Glad you found it. I've done much worse, believe me! If you have any questions check out the Google Groups (no Groups comments!) for Shen. I am eager to see the 5th edition, and I will probably buy the print version.

droideqa 1y ago

I had such high hopes for Shen but the licensing shenanigans at the beginning prevented it from having a great, large open source community.

eggy 1y ago
It's resolved. I helped support it for a brief time for the SP version, which is now integrated into the latest version. You're right though, that this put many people off.