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