The Earl Grey programming language

mikejholly · 11 years ago

Await, pattern matching and macros are great language features Node and CoffeeScript both lack. Nice work!

pooriaazimi · 11 years ago

IcedCoffeeScript had await/defer three of four years ago: https://github.com/maxtaco/coffee-script/

But I agree, excellent set of features.

thomasfoster96 · 11 years ago

Async/await is coming in ECMAScript 7, so Node will have it soon.

Dralletje · 11 years ago

Define "soon" haha. With the speed of adopting ECMAScript 6 this "soon" could become really long.

fenollp · 11 years ago

    fact(match) =  
       0 or 1 -> 1  
       n -> n * fact(n - 1)

why not simply

    fact(0 or 1) -> 1
    fact(n) -> n * fact(n - 1)

istvan__ · 11 years ago

I think the first one is a single function that has pattern matching for the parameter while the second one is defining the function twice and relying on the language to call the right one based on the parameter.

I think in Erlang the function identification is the name and the arity and this is as close I know of what you would like to have.

mikkom · 11 years ago

Erlang has both methods, pattern matching in function definition and case-clause pattern matching.

(some random link http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1050913/erlang-style-case...)

TheDong · 11 years ago

In haskell you can write exactly the following:

    fact 0 = 0
    fact 1 = 1
    fact n = n * fact (n-1)

It works as you would expect and really they aren't that dissimilar.

arh68 · 11 years ago

Erlang does it very much like GP's suggestion with the one downside of being 'noisy' with its punctuation (some might say 'clearer'):

  factorial(0) -> 1;
  factorial(N) -> N * factorial(N-1).

  factorial(Foo, 0) -> .. ;
  factorial(Foo, Bar) -> .. .

Semicolons separate partial definitions for a single function of a single arity, and periods end those definitions. Removing the punctuation might make parsing a bit more difficult (will there be more partial definitions?), so it's understandable to not offer it.

akst · 11 years ago

I'd imagine you could compile them both down to the same thing, as there has to be a conditional at some point to determine what code to run (unless there was some kind of dynamic dispatch), I think it's just a matter of preference

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shakethemonkey · 11 years ago

Hyphens in variable names. It's a bold strategy for a scripting language, Cotton.

Shoop · 11 years ago

I think a lot of lisps use hyphens in variable names

shakethemonkey · 11 years ago

There's plenty of precedent. It's just rare for a reason. I'm not sure allowing slightly easier access to CSS syntax justifies it.

tmalsburg2 · 11 years ago

Yes, because Lisp uses prefix notation and hence there is no ambiguity: a-b cannot be interpreted as subtraction in lisp but in EG ...?

SeanLuke · 11 years ago

Lisps do not have operators. This language does.

TazeTSchnitzel · 11 years ago

Imagine being able to type style.border-width in JS instead of style.borderWidth

agumonkey · 11 years ago

You just reminded me of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JavaScript_Style_Sheets

saraid216 · 11 years ago

  style['border-width']

ghayes · 11 years ago

inner = border - width

xxyyxx · 11 years ago

I like it. It goes further than coffeescript and livescript can. Especially with macros and better react support

evincarofautumn · 11 years ago

One one hand, this is yet another syntactic reskin of ideas from modern imperative-land. On the other hand, it looks like a good one, by a thoughtful author who also cares about integration with existing platforms, and that’s not nothing.

sssilver · 11 years ago

Actually, the language looks and reads great. Keep up!

explorigin · 11 years ago

High-level comparison with Haxe:

EG and Haxe share: - compiles to Javascript - Macros - Pattern Matching - async/await (Haxe requires a 3rd party macro lib, but it integrates well)

EG has: - cleaner syntax - document-building DSL - "One of EG's primary goals is to be as compatible as possible with existing JavaScript libraries and frameworks and the node/iojs ecosystem." (Haxe makes compromises here to support other platforms)

Haxe has: - static type-checking - dead-code elimination - support for more platform targets (PHP, Python, C#, Java and more) - years of experience

makmanalp · 11 years ago

I really like how the tooling to create a full application is already there, it isn't like "here's my new language, but there are no libraries, good luck!".

> Global variables need to be declared to be accessible: > globals: > document, google, React

If I'm getting this correctly, what a brilliant idea! Contain the shittiness by having one single location where all globals are declared. So very helpful.