Growing a Language, by Guy Steele
Bill PughYouTube ↗
Further reading 2
Does concise array notation make a language easy to extend? →Array operations can express a great deal in a few symbols. Integrating a new operation into the language raises a separate question about its rules and conventions.Can libraries grow a language? →If libraries can express new abstractions in ordinary code, the core language can grow through its users. Compare the facilities needed to make those extensions feel native.
Caption notes
Steele uses restricted vocabulary to demonstrate why a language needs mechanisms for its users to grow it, alongside conventions for selecting useful extensions.
Original passages · 6
I need to design a language that can grow.the new words defined by a library should look just like the primitivesthe
plan can change in real time to meet the needsthe rest can be done with libraries, most of them built by usersI need to design a language that can growNo one knew all of PL/I