On Fri, 2007-09-14 at 21:55 +0200, Peter Verswyvelen wrote:
> I'm not sure, I don't know LISP in detail, but as far as I know, LISP
> is a fully dynamic language.
>
> I actually meant a static language where you build your own strong
> types using the language itself. On the micro level, the language only
> knows abouts bits and bytes without semantics, just like assembler, no
> types at all. But the language allows you to build whatever "type" or
> "semantics" you want from scratch, by providing a keyword that forces
> certain part of the program to be evaluated at compile time. A bit
> like macros, but written in the same language. Although not exactly
> the same, the Digital Mars D language has a "static if (p) { q }"
> statement, where p must evaluate to a constant expression at compile
> time, otherwise the compiler gives an error/warning (I'm not sure,
> haven't tried it yet). You can do that in C++ (using templates) and
> Haskell (using types) but these are actually mini-sub-languages.
> Probably giving control to the programmer of how type-checking should
> be coded bypasses the advantages of strong typing, so this is most
> likely a dumb idea...
You might find Forth interesting/entertaining. After implementing
versions of Dijkstra's guarded if and do constructs using the same
mechanisms that were used to implement the "native" control structures I
decided that Forth was the closest thing to a genuine extensible
language that I had ever worked with.
-- Bill Wood
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