Readit Newsgiann commented on Show HN: Buzz, strongly typed scripting language written in Zig github.com/buzz-language/... · Posted by u/giann
giann commented on Show HN: Buzz, strongly typed scripting language written in Zig github.com/buzz-language/... · Posted by u/giann
Actually what made me not consider this a "real" scripting language is not any of those things but rather the existence of a non-optional entry point function. Scripting languages typically read code from top of file to bottom to decide what to execute
It’s really hard (impossible?) to have a type system with user defined types and do without a declarative top level.
giann commented on Show HN: Buzz, strongly typed scripting language written in Zig github.com/buzz-language/... · Posted by u/giann
> No nonsense coercion
Given that the focus is on being unambiguous I found this line a bit amusing. Maybe it’s me but I can’t tell for sure whether this describes a quality of the language’s coercion mechanism or a promise that the language will include no such “nonsense” like e.g. javascript :)
This means the language will never coerce things for you implicitly. Booleans are true and false not 1 and 0 or “true” and “false” etc.
giann commented on Show HN: Buzz, strongly typed scripting language written in Zig github.com/buzz-language/... · Posted by u/giann
> object ...
You already lost me there. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
https://suzdalnitski.medium.com/oop-will-make-you-suffer-846...
They are more like structs with methods. There’s no inheritance only protocols (interfaces) you can conform to.
Buzz is not an OOP language.
giann commented on Show HN: Buzz, strongly typed scripting language written in Zig github.com/buzz-language/... · Posted by u/giann
No, it resembles a safety pin and stars, the well known Society for Communist Seamstresses flag.
Safety pin? No its an astronaut and some stars.
giann commented on Show HN: Buzz, strongly typed scripting language written in Zig github.com/buzz-language/... · Posted by u/giann
Curious what the author is thinking of when calling this a "scripting language"? I personally don't have much trouble imagining a strongly-typed scripting language, but that definitely goes against the flow of the past couple of decades. Is it that it is garbage collected? That's about all I can see that would make this immediately obviously a "scripting language". It doesn't seem like it ought to be intrinsically as slow as what usually gets called a "scripting language".
To be clear, this is an honest question, and possibly something the author should consider answering, intended as feedback, not a criticism. I'm open to it. I'm also curious and I'm sure I'm not the only one. (Either way I definitely would suggest mentioning if it's garbage collected or not. It's an important point.)
Author here. A few points make buzz a “scripting language” in my view:
- runs in a VM
- garbage collected
- high level
- “simple” meaning there’s only a handful of concepts to understand to use it
It’s true that we’re not used to scripting languages having a type system. But its a trend that is catching on: python has types, php too and typescript is at its peak in popularity to name a few.
giann commented on Show HN: Buzz, strongly typed scripting language written in Zig github.com/buzz-language/... · Posted by u/giann
Now, 5 years after his death, he's little brother is also in love with the show and we watch an episode at least once a day.
There will never be another TV show like this one for those personal reasons and also because it's just too good.