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Meet Lux, A New Lisp-like Language (javaworld.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the parenthetically-speaking dept.

Drawing on Haskell, Clojure, and ML, the new Lux language first targeted the Java Virtual Machine, but will be a universal, cross-platform language. An anonymous reader quotes JavaWorld: Currently in an 0.5 beta release, Lux claims that while it implements features common to Lisp-like languages, such as macros, they're more flexible and powerful in Lux... [W]hereas Clojure is dynamically typed, as many Lisp-like languages have been, Lux is statically typed to reduce bugs and enhance performance. Lux also lets programmers create new types programmatically, which provides some of the flexibility found in dynamically typed languages. The functional language Haskell has type classes, but Lux is intended to be less constraining. Getting around any constraints can be done natively to the language, not via hacks in the type system.
There's a a 16-chapter book about the language on GitHub.

7 of 205 comments (clear)

  1. Just what the world needed most urgently... by ffkom · · Score: 2, Insightful

    ... yet another programming language. Next, please work on a new HDMI standard, another E-car charging plug and why not invent another lens-mount for cameras, while you're at it? :-)

    1. Re:Just what the world needed most urgently... by Tough+Love · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Or does the world urgently need another random person on the internet to post random angst to an article that they have not read and most likely would not understand if they did?

      --
      When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
    2. Re:Just what the world needed most urgently... by PoopJuggler · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You couldn't be more wrong. New programming languages is exactly what we need especially as we approach the end of "Moore's Law" with the discrete type of fabrication we do nowadays. Sooner or later the world will realize that in order to build really complex software, on the order of functioning neurological networks or quantum systems, we will need to evolve the languages we use to describe those systems so that we can describe them quickly. The software we write currently is dogshit compared what we could be creating, and all these new LISPy functional languages are an attempt to move to the next level. Instead of writing 100 for() loops our languages will need to describe the exact same construct in a handful of instructions. Not machine instructions but language instructions. Creating really advanced software takes so long currently because our languages are primitive. Compare programming a 6502 in assembly back in 1980 to programming in Java nowadays. Using modern languages and compilers you can write code 1,000,000 times faster, clearer and more complex in the same amount of time. Software will never get more advanced without a massive paradigm shift in the underlying languages we use to describe systems that will have ever-increasing complexity, because you can't just squeeze out more lines of code in 8 hrs from the same humans, and you can't just throw more humans at the problem. We need to start coding much much "smarter", almost writing languages that just describe a system in very general terms, and have the computer actually do the "coding." Either way, the future will not be primitive imperative languages like C/C++/Java, but something far more declarative in nature.

  2. sorry by ooloorie · · Score: 4, Insightful

    first targeted the Java Virtual Machine, but will be a universal, cross-platform language

    This may be nice for Java developers, but I can't think of any significant language that started off targeting the JVM and then successfully moved to another platform. That's because languages targeting the JVM get bogged down by the limitations of the JVM and the get entangled in the Java libraries.

    If you want to develop a new language these days, start by targeting the LLVM.

  3. We love functional languages except using them. by jellomizer · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Functional Languages are really cool in theory. However I find that for Real World development. Your code is often too tight for proper maintenance. Where Procedural and OOP is much better at fixing issues.

    While yes *you* are the greatest developer in the world, and can write code better than everyone else in the world. It doesn't stop the people who pays your bills from giving you bad specifications, or come across problems that were not thought of before.
    In my decades of experience, I have found to be nimble you need to keep humble and figure that your code will not end up like it was planned, so you need to put in hooks for expansion and think on solving issues that are not asked for. As well assuming that they may be some data that could cause your code to break and you will need to fix it quickly.

    Functional Languages often become a bit too dense to fix. And god help you if you want to unload that project to someone else so you can work on something more interesting.

    --
    If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
  4. Re:Meh by mrbester · · Score: 1, Insightful

    "Lux is statically typed to reduce bugs and enhance performance"

    Citation needed showing actual proof this is true and not just someone hating on dynamic typing.

    --
    "Wait. Something's happening. It's opening up! My God, it's full of apricots!"
  5. Re:What about Scheme? by AuMatar · · Score: 3, Insightful

    One or two places deciding to use Ruby or Eiffel isn't a sufficient enough base to make me wrong. Ruby was a flash in the pan and is basically dead.

    --
    I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?