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  1. <!DOCTYPE html>
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  4. <title>Programming Language Checklist</title>
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  7. <body>
  8. <tt>
  9. Programming Language Checklist<br>
  10. by <a href="https://famicol.in">Colin McMillen</a>, <a href="http://jcreed.org">Jason Reed</a>, and <a href="https://elly.town/">Elly Fong-Jones</a>, 2011-10-10.
  11. <br>
  12. <p>
  13. <pre>
  14. You appear to be advocating a new:
  15. [ ] functional [ ] imperative [ ] object-oriented [ ] procedural [ ] stack-based
  16. [ ] "multi-paradigm" [ ] lazy [ ] eager [ ] statically-typed [ ] dynamically-typed
  17. [ ] pure [ ] impure [ ] non-hygienic [ ] visual [ ] beginner-friendly
  18. [ ] non-programmer-friendly [ ] completely incomprehensible
  19. programming language. Your language will not work. Here is why it will not work.
  20. You appear to believe that:
  21. [ ] Syntax is what makes programming difficult
  22. [ ] Garbage collection is free [ ] Computers have infinite memory
  23. [ ] Nobody really needs:
  24. [ ] concurrency [ ] a REPL [ ] debugger support [ ] IDE support [ ] I/O
  25. [ ] to interact with code not written in your language
  26. [ ] The entire world speaks 7-bit ASCII
  27. [ ] Scaling up to large software projects will be easy
  28. [ ] Convincing programmers to adopt a new language will be easy
  29. [ ] Convincing programmers to adopt a language-specific IDE will be easy
  30. [ ] Programmers love writing lots of boilerplate
  31. [ ] Specifying behaviors as "undefined" means that programmers won't rely on them
  32. [ ] "Spooky action at a distance" makes programming more fun
  33. Unfortunately, your language (has/lacks):
  34. [ ] comprehensible syntax [ ] semicolons [ ] significant whitespace [ ] macros
  35. [ ] implicit type conversion [ ] explicit casting [ ] type inference
  36. [ ] goto [ ] exceptions [ ] closures [ ] tail recursion [ ] coroutines
  37. [ ] reflection [ ] subtyping [ ] multiple inheritance [ ] operator overloading
  38. [ ] algebraic datatypes [ ] recursive types [ ] polymorphic types
  39. [ ] covariant array typing [ ] monads [ ] dependent types
  40. [ ] infix operators [ ] nested comments [ ] multi-line strings [ ] regexes
  41. [ ] call-by-value [ ] call-by-name [ ] call-by-reference [ ] call-cc
  42. The following philosophical objections apply:
  43. [ ] Programmers should not need to understand category theory to write "Hello, World!"
  44. [ ] Programmers should not develop RSI from writing "Hello, World!"
  45. [ ] The most significant program written in your language is its own compiler
  46. [ ] The most significant program written in your language isn't even its own compiler
  47. [ ] No language spec
  48. [ ] "The implementation is the spec"
  49. [ ] The implementation is closed-source [ ] covered by patents [ ] not owned by you
  50. [ ] Your type system is unsound [ ] Your language cannot be unambiguously parsed
  51. [ ] a proof of same is attached
  52. [ ] invoking this proof crashes the compiler
  53. [ ] The name of your language makes it impossible to find on Google
  54. [ ] Interpreted languages will never be as fast as C
  55. [ ] Compiled languages will never be "extensible"
  56. [ ] Writing a compiler that understands English is AI-complete
  57. [ ] Your language relies on an optimization which has never been shown possible
  58. [ ] There are less than 100 programmers on Earth smart enough to use your language
  59. [ ] ____________________________ takes exponential time
  60. [ ] ____________________________ is known to be undecidable
  61. Your implementation has the following flaws:
  62. [ ] CPUs do not work that way
  63. [ ] RAM does not work that way
  64. [ ] VMs do not work that way
  65. [ ] Compilers do not work that way
  66. [ ] Compilers cannot work that way
  67. [ ] Shift-reduce conflicts in parsing seem to be resolved using rand()
  68. [ ] You require the compiler to be present at runtime
  69. [ ] You require the language runtime to be present at compile-time
  70. [ ] Your compiler errors are completely inscrutable
  71. [ ] Dangerous behavior is only a warning
  72. [ ] The compiler crashes if you look at it funny
  73. [ ] The VM crashes if you look at it funny
  74. [ ] You don't seem to understand basic optimization techniques
  75. [ ] You don't seem to understand basic systems programming
  76. [ ] You don't seem to understand pointers
  77. [ ] You don't seem to understand functions
  78. Additionally, your marketing has the following problems:
  79. [ ] Unsupported claims of increased productivity
  80. [ ] Unsupported claims of greater "ease of use"
  81. [ ] Obviously rigged benchmarks
  82. [ ] Graphics, simulation, or crypto benchmarks where your code just calls
  83. handwritten assembly through your FFI
  84. [ ] String-processing benchmarks where you just call PCRE
  85. [ ] Matrix-math benchmarks where you just call BLAS
  86. [ ] Noone really believes that your language is faster than:
  87. [ ] assembly [ ] C [ ] FORTRAN [ ] Java [ ] Ruby [ ] Prolog
  88. [ ] Rejection of orthodox programming-language theory without justification
  89. [ ] Rejection of orthodox systems programming without justification
  90. [ ] Rejection of orthodox algorithmic theory without justification
  91. [ ] Rejection of basic computer science without justification
  92. Taking the wider ecosystem into account, I would like to note that:
  93. [ ] Your complex sample code would be one line in: _______________________
  94. [ ] We already have an unsafe imperative language
  95. [ ] We already have a safe imperative OO language
  96. [ ] We already have a safe statically-typed eager functional language
  97. [ ] You have reinvented Lisp but worse
  98. [ ] You have reinvented Javascript but worse
  99. [ ] You have reinvented Java but worse
  100. [ ] You have reinvented C++ but worse
  101. [ ] You have reinvented PHP but worse
  102. [ ] You have reinvented PHP better, but that's still no justification
  103. [ ] You have reinvented Brainfuck but non-ironically
  104. In conclusion, this is what I think of you:
  105. [ ] You have some interesting ideas, but this won't fly.
  106. [ ] This is a bad language, and you should feel bad for inventing it.
  107. [ ] Programming in this language is an adequate punishment for inventing it.
  108. </pre>
  109. </tt>
  110. </body>
  111. </html>