LemonScript: A typed programming language inspired by TypeScript and Python | Hacker News Reader

LemonScript: A typed programming language inspired by TypeScript and Python

plebussupremus1234.github.io

49 pointselisaado14 comments

I don't think this is a particularly serious attempt at a programming language but it's impressive coming from a 13 year old.

Wait really? That is pretty impressive for a 13 year old. I'd say pretty impressive even for some one in their teens (even doing a toy language following the Stanford pl courses online is no easy feat!!).

That's what the author's Github profile says!

Thanks, that context makes a lot more sense. Kudos to the author then.

Correct link:

https://plebussupremus1234.github.io/LemonScript/

Notably absent (at least in the docs) is a Hash/Map datatype, a struct type may be beyond the goals of the language. I do see how it straddles Python and TypeScript in character. One thing I miss from TypeScript is the Union/Sum type which is far underutilized in languages.

Proper union types are really hard if you want to do anything more than check. Once you're into inference territory, this gets really hard.

Look at Haskell's faux union Either. It should be true that Either a a = a but of course, it isn't and you always have to destructure this.

In inference it's easier to just infer one most general type instead of a (possibly infinite) number of sets of types.

Basicaly wherever types are ambiguous, you'd need to try all alternatives and possibly compile all of them.

Faux unions are also underused but we do find them from time to time.

Coincidence or not, it looks a lot like Lemon language.

http://www.lemon-lang.org/documentation

The link leads to a 404 but there's a menu so it is not a big problem.

Inspired by Python? Like they overheard someone talking about Python before they implemented some feature? all I see are "{", "}", and ";" everywhere ;-)

`init`, `self`, the comment syntax, `and`, `or`, and the import syntax are all pretty clearly python-inspired, to name a few. "Curly braces or no curly braces" is not the only syntax decision a language has to make.

There's obviously a lot more inspiration from typescript, but they do list python second in the title, so that's fair.