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Shen 1.7 available

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Is this really an appropriate post? I don't know what Shen is, I find no explanation here, and I am required to enter a username and password to find out more.

(I don't get all the nuances of HN; it's an honest question.)

http://jng.imagine27.com/articles/2011-09-23-063927_shen_kl_...

Is it appropriate? I wish it weren't, but there's little room in the title to explain Shen (and then it would be "the successor to the Qi language", and one cannot leave post descriptions. But a username/password aren't necessary; I don't know what you clicked.

I followed the "Shen 1.7 available" link, which points to https://groups.google.com/group/qilang/browse_thread/thread/.... I have always been prompted to login when going to Google Groups threads; I don't know about others. I'd be very happy if there were a way around it.

(If I'd noticed QiLang in the URL, I guess I would have had a better idea about what I was seeing ….)

You are probably correct - bad title. I cannot edit it now, alas.

Here's a fairly concise explanation of what Shen is:

http://www.lambdassociates.org/shen.htm

TL;DR: Shen is the successor to Qi, a functional programming language in the Lisp family.

Between the impressive language and a rather offputting website, I really want to learn more but at the same time am afraid to. On one hand, the type system is interesting and the work put into improving Lisp is visible; at the same time, I can't find any publications or explanations of the type system, his intro for Lisp programmers doesn't address macros, and he seems intent on selling me copies of his book on Qi before I even properly learn to use it. Neither can I find example code. So basically, if there was an argument to be made about programmers not understanding marketing, now would be a time to make it.

Some examples using Qi

http://jng.imagine27.com/articles/2011-07-06-164206_purely_f...

http://jng.imagine27.com/articles/2011-06-28-141124_purely_f...

http://jng.imagine27.com/articles/2011-03-14-084257_happy_pi...

Thanks; though I'm unclear what Qi gives me in any of these examples over ML or similar. I really would like to see examples of its specific features (the type system, say).

This is the Qi II book, it has a lot of information and code examples: http://www.lambdassociates.org/Book/page000.htm

More information: http://www.lambdassociates.org/doc.htm

For those looking for more information, check out the specification page which has a nice introduction and more in depth documentation:

http://www.lambdassociates.org/specification/shen_1.7.htm

If you're using Homebrew on OS X, here's a formula to install Shen 1.7: https://github.com/hadronzoo/homebrew/blob/master/Library/Fo...

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