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Comment by aleph_minus_one | Hacker News Reader

> I wonder why more languages don't have a few simple examples of: "HTTP server", "hello world", "todo list app" that you can just click and it shows the code for how you'd make it in that language.

Often the reason is that the value that the programming language brings is thinking very differently about how to write code - the examples how to write something in it are merely the "more boring" consequences of this different way of thinking.

If you want a programming language that "just" enables you to write something well-understood (in particular in the area of web development) like your suggested

> "HTTP server", "hello world", "todo list app"

in a perhaps just a little bit more elegant/concise way, just look at which web development language/framework is currently fashionable on HN.

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> just look at which web framework

See, by listing those, you can tell what it is.

I imagine the quick project showcase would be different for Swift or for Rust.

Would be nice to have something like that for this Fstar or any language I haven’t heard of - or maybe have but never looked into so I see why people are using it.

Like what kinds of things i can even think of writing with it - an implementation example

> I imagine the quick project showcase would be different for Swift or for Rust.

> Would be nice to have something like that for this Fstar or any language I haven’t heard of - or maybe have but never looked into so I see why people are using it.

I suggest simply having a look at the table of contents of

> https://fstar-lang.org/tutorial/proof-oriented-programming-i...

This in my opinion gives you a first rough idea for what kind of problems people are using F*.

Spoiler alert: these are not the kind of problems which are related to ["HTTP server", "hello world", "todo list app", ...].

This is exactly the reason why I wrote further above:

> Often the reason [why more languages don't have a few simple examples of: "HTTP server", "hello world", "todo list app"] is that the value that the programming language brings is thinking very differently about how to write code - the examples how to write something in it are merely the "more boring" consequences of this different way of thinking.

> these are not the kind of problems which are related to ["HTTP server", "hello world", "todo list app", ...].

Ok, what kinds of problems are they?

And ideally - what does a simple solution look like in F-star?

Set me on the path to installing the thing (ideally above the fold)

> Ok, what kinds of problems are they?

> And ideally - what does a simple solution look like in F-star?

RTFM

Or to explicate on this point: find a section in the table of contents that looks interesting to you, go to the respective section, and look at a code example.

> Set me on the path to installing the thing (ideally above the fold)

How to install this thing:

1. Read https://fstar-lang.org/index.html#download

2. Go to the GitHub page linked there: https://github.com/fstarlang/fstar/releases

3. Download F* for an operating system of your choice there.

You are right that someone could go through that effort bat that only really makes sense if they give you some.idea how to use it.

Reading the exchange it seems like you got caught up on the illustrative examples the other person used. If a web server isn't a good example of a simple problem for F* the landing page should have an example of something that is. It shouldn't take going through that many steps to understand the so what.

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