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Developing a Statically Typed Programming Language (2017)

by proxybop on 12/8/19, 10:32 PM with 20 comments

• by shpongled on 12/9/19, 3:56 AM

  Pierce's Types and Programming Languages is a phenomenal textbook. I'm almost done with my implementation of System F-omega (polymorphic lambda calculus with higher kinded types and type operators), featuring a full handwritten lexer/parser with helpful diagnostics.

  My end goal is to use it as one phase of IR for a functional language compiler.

• by AdieuToLogic on 12/9/19, 8:03 AM

  Cool article.

  While I cannot find the exact quote from Martin Odersky[0], I do believe he once said something along the line of, "it takes about ten years to make a complete typed language."

  If anyone also recalls this and has a link to the quote, I would much appreciate the pointer to it.

  0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Odersky

• by Scramblejams on 12/9/19, 3:58 AM

  Suggest removing the anchor from the link, as it drops you into the middle of the piece. That, or add “Type Rules” to the title.

• by hhas01 on 12/9/19, 11:48 AM

  Curious: from what I can see, a type system is really just an embedded declarative DSL for doing set algebra.

  So is there a technical reason why education and implementations always intertwine it with a larger client language, rather than treating it as a complete, self-contained entity in its own right? Or is that lack of decomposition just oversight?

• by LessDmesg on 12/9/19, 8:37 AM

  I started reading but stopped when I saw "succ n" and "prev n". Unary numbers are so academic and disconnected from reality that I lose interest in any paper that uses them. Lambda calculus makes me yawn too. Guess I'll be making a programming language on my own to see how far I get without reading TAPL or any CS papers :-)

• by macintux on 12/9/19, 12:10 AM

  2017