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Ask HN: Good performant language for handwritten code?

by turboat on 11/9/23, 9:48 PM with 5 comments

I'm planning a project where I want to write my code with pencil and paper.

However, the goal is to create working, robust software. It needs to actually run on computers, so I'll periodically transcribe to digital form. The deploy target is servers. Let's say one of the common VM types available on AWS.

Therefore, I'm trying to identify languages that are fast but fairly concise. For example, Ruby or Python would be good handwriting options, but they have slower execution speed. Rust and Java are fast, but verbose to write.

I'm thinking JS, Clojure, or Crystal might be the most practical choices. Any other suggestions?

by gus_massa on 11/9/23, 10:13 PM
Python with numba and @jit is quite fast https://numba.readthedocs.io/en/stable/user/jit.html but you need to know how to use it. (I don't know, but one of my coworkers does.)
There is a nice comparison of languages speed and sizes in https://benchmarksgame-team.pages.debian.net/benchmarksgame/...
I like Racket, but editing it without the help of a editor to match the parenthesis is imposible.
by enduku on 11/10/23, 3:24 PM
I find myself using J [0] for such type of ideation/programming exercises. Klong/K/APL also lend to similar productivity.
[0] https://www.hillelwayne.com/handwriting-j/
by 082349872349872 on 11/9/23, 10:47 PM
The APLs are tough to beat for high latency input mechanisms.
(Fun fact: Peter Landin originally introduced the "offside rule" because it would be suitable for handwritten as well as digital input)