On: Ni – A language influenced by Smalltalk written in...

[giancarlostoro]

> Who says Ni?

There were knights once upon a time who did indeed say Ni, but it is no longer so.

[vezzy-fnord → giancarlostoro]

In fairness, a language named "Ekke-Ekke-Ptang-Zoom-Boing-Ni" would be far easier to search for than Ni.

Concerning the language itself, the block-based Lisp influence taken from REBOL is noteworthy. The latter is quite underappreciated in general.

[gokr → vezzy-fnord]

Also, I found it interesting that this free form of syntax actually can be made quite readable (in comparison to Lisp, which I love in theory but balk at trying to read).

I even think Ni is turning out more readable than Rebol/Red - probably due to the use of keyword syntax and infix arguments. And the idea with arg words made lambdas very lightweight, much more so than in Rebol.

[draegtun → gokr]

It's trivial to add an arg words style lambda to Rebol.

For example, here is a very naive version:

  lambda: function [block] [
      args: sort unique collect [
          parse block [
              any [
                  w: set arg get-word! (
                      keep to-word arg
                      change w to-word arg
                  )
                  | skip
              ]
          ]
      ]
      function args block
  ]

test in REPL...

  >> f: lambda [:a + :b]

  >> f 1 2
  == 3

  >> foo: lambda [c: :a + :b  print [:a "+" :b "=" c]]

  >> foo 1 2
  1 + 2 = 3

NB. However you wouldn't really use :arg-name here because this is already reserved for the get-word! datatype.

[gokr → draegtun]

Yes, and I never implied its not hard to do. And examples such as this one are quite impressive - which is what got me interested in Rebol in the first place and triggered the development of Ni.

However... if I understand your code properly - you are basically generating an argument declaration by scanning for "get words". So its still a static declaration.

In Ni an arg word is an operation. That means a Ni func can decide how many arguments to pull, and in which order, dynamically, much like stack oriented languages can do. Usefulness? Dunno :) But its not the same.

Also, yes, I opted out of set words in Ni since I want to be able to have keyword syntax á la Smalltalk/Self. And I use "^" instead of ":" prefix for get words, because I wanted the argwords to be similar to how they look in Smalltalk. :)

[namuol → vezzy-fnord]

Searchability is easily fixed with a -lang postfix, as the Go community has demonstrated. :)

[gokr → vezzy-fnord]

You know, I do think "Ni" as a name sucks but my imagination was low. On the other hand... renaming to "Eki Eki Patang" or something similar is a thought I have already entertained. When reaching a higher level of maturity ;)

[ScottWRobinson → giancarlostoro]

Ni dependency list: Shrubbery

[andrewbinstock → giancarlostoro]

Chemists write Ni, but pronounce it "Nickel"

[seanmcdirmid → giancarlostoro]

Ni, or 你，means "you" in Chinese.

[Spiritus → seanmcdirmid]

Ni is a more formal form of "you" in Swedish.

[gokr → Spiritus]

Yeah, although I had no such association (I am swedish). But... I did notice the Chinese connection, which I liked since we have two daughters from China. ;)

[arunc → seanmcdirmid]

Ni, or நீ means "you" in Tamil as well. :)