Harps: A new general purpose language | Hacker News Reader

Harps: A new general purpose language

harpslang.github.io

15 pointsUglyToad22 comments

Guys, when you do a new language, syntax is nearly completely uninteresting, because it's exchangeable. Please answer some of these questions, instead:

1. memory management strategy [x]

2. target platform [?]

3. evaluation semantics (lazy/eager) [?]

4. argument passing strategy [?]

5. if type-safe: overloading [?]

6. if type-safe: parametric polymorphism [?]

7. if type-safe: (nominal/structural) subtyping [?]

8. if type-safe: module system/language [?]

9. if compiled to machine code: separate compilation [?]

10. if compiled to machine code: ABI [?]

11. if interpreted: multi-threading capability (Ok, this one's a hit on python) [?]

12. ... I probably missed a couple of data points

edit: I should have seen sooner that it is a parody, but my point still stands.

13. Demonstrate pieces of code and classes of tasks where your shiny new language excels over idiomatic code in languages A/B/C, in terms of safety, readability, performance, brevity or whatever else category you consider important

But you do realize this is just a parody making fun of new languages?

It was too subtle for me too. It didn't help that I've seen new languages on here that were completely serious and much more absurd than this.

I thought something a bit off when this purported language sprang forth fully-featured from its author's brow with all of the library support for F(M)ANG adventures.

...unless it's a joke, like in this case where reader should guess it's just c# and 2nd mentioned dialect is f#.

They forgot to mention it's open source and backed by (M).

Usually, the process of exchanging syntax is equivalent to "doing a new language" though.

What is the "joke" here? Making of fun of uninteresting languages with vague descriptions and lots of unsubstantiated claims?

This is C# and a snippet of F# and the "docs" redirect to Dotnet docs.

Since we are talking about C# and F# here, I wish F# was completely transformable to C# and backwards.

Currently the F# has some pains in .NET ecosystem. The new C# Source Generators can't work in F# because they generate C# code. F# doesn't have partial classes, while C# has.

If there were 1=1 tool to convert between F# and C# (it would not need to retain the syntax, but behavior) we could mix them in same project. That would be a dream.

Still, you can mix F# and C# in the same solution.

Look a lot like C#, which I guess was an inspiration. What be are advantages over C#?

Well, it literally is C#. It's a tongue-in-cheek parody of novelty languages, but it's describing .NET (the "two languages" it talks about are C# and F# respectively).

That flew over my head haha

If you follow the link in the documentation it is a link to the documentation for dotnet, which is rather strange?

Is this a new language for the CLR? In that case why does it not support Windows?

It is also pretty interesting that it already have 1000 packages even though it is still unreleased.

This page seems to not be ready for general consumption in any case

“F(M)ANG scale” is an excellent touch.

I also like the comment:

//Summon Tony the Pony

This was prompted by https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29228922

Since .NET 6 is so different to early .NET would it generate interest if it was rebranded?

> Harps' package manager, gentu

Is this a reference to gentoolinux's package manager being the coolest of all packagemanagers?

What's the joke with the name "Harps"? It's an anagram of "Sharp"?

> Harps is used for F(M)ANG scale web servers.

O RLY? Which of those companies use it in at-scale production?

harps , sharps, I believe this is pure parody, right, right ?

Check the source, near the bottom.

    <!-- In case it wasn't obvious this is a joke -->

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