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Red Hat Releases Ceylon Language 1.0.0

Posted by Unknown on from the everyone-is-doing-it dept.

First time accepted submitter Gavin King writes with news that the Ceylon language hit 1.0 "Ceylon 1.0 is a modern, modular, statically typed programming language for the Java and JavaScript virtual machines. The language features, an emphasis upon readability and a strong bias toward omission or elimination of potentially-harmful constructs; an extremely powerful type system combining subtype and parametric polymorphism with declaration-site variance, including first-class union and intersection types, and using principal types for local type inference and flow-dependent typing; a unique treatment of function and tuple types, enabling powerful abstractions; first-class constructs for defining modules and dependencies between modules; a very flexible syntax including comprehensions and support for expressing tree-like structures; and fully-reified generic types, on both the JVM and JavaScript virtual machines, and a unique typesafe metamodel. More information may be found in the feature list and quick introduction." If you think Ceylon is cool, you might find Ur/Web interesting too.

6 of 159 comments (clear)

  1. Cool! by warrax_666 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    One of the few languages in recent times with an interesting type system which isn't just a trivial rehash of existing (in practice) ones.

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    HAND.
    1. Re:Cool! by ron_ivi · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I'd like to see a type system that can help enforce units (like mass * distance = force). If it were really lightweight (in typing) to create types with meaningful units, it could protect you from accidentally adding things like Mbits with MBytes.

    2. Re:Cool! by Just+Some+Guy · · Score: 5, Interesting

      You'd love Haskell.

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      Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
  2. So...Off-brand Scala? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Reading the language description, I don't see anything notably distinct from Scala. If anything, Ceylon seems a bit clunkier. The one upside appears to be baked in translation into JS, but others have already provided a Scala -> JS parser.

  3. Red Hat's plans by Kongming · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I am curious as to Red Hat's practical motivations for creating this language. Specifically, do they plan on integrating it in their existing business or projects in any way?

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    (no sig)
  4. Re:Ceylon? by rssrss · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Serendib is the Arabic name for the Island, and Serendip in Persian. A Persian folk tale "The Three Princes of Serendip" became known in England through a 16th century Italian translation. The protagonists of that story were in the habit of discovering of things they were not seeking. In 1754 Horace Walpole, English writer and parliamentarian, coin the English word "serendipity" to capture that happy characteristic.

    Taprobane, a Greek name for the island, would be another literary allusion.

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    In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.