I enjoyed Hillel Wayne’s recent newsletter about microfeatures they’d like to see in programming languages. A “microfeature” is essentially a small convenience that makes programming in that language a bit easier without fundamentally changing it. I love this idea. I’m partial to a bit of syntactic sugar, even if it can cause cancer of the semicolon. I have a few features that I’d love to see more languages adopt, so I thought I’d join in the fun. Unlike Hillel’s, however, most of mine are much larger changes. I’ve long thought it was time for a bit more experimentalism to return to programming language design, and not just for type systems! Maybe these ideas will inspire you to think up some whacky new programming languages. Let me know in the comments.
Continue reading “A few programming language features I’d like to see”Tag: fun
Making things
I made my daughter a toy tree house thing for Christmas out of old firewood (and a slice of cedar donated by a neighbour). It’s a bit clunky in places — “rustic” shall we say? But I probably enjoyed making this, over a few weeks of lunchtimes and evenings, more than anything I’ve done for a long time.
I don’t think I’ll give up the day job just yet, and I think I’ll replace the top platforms at some point (the wood is not in good condition, made more obvious by the oil finish). But it’s been a huge hit – so far it’s been played with every day. I can’t ask more than that.
Neil Madden 