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1 point by evanrmurphy 5272 days ago | link | parent

Ah, I see. Yes, at the moment this compiler isn't very good at generating minimal JavaScript, since it's so faithful to arc.arc's macro definitions. A lot of the later work might involve optimizing it to produce smaller, more efficient JS.

Of course, you can still use (((((a!b 4) 'c) 'd) 'e) 'f) to generate a.b(4).c.d.e.f. [1]

> mzscheme 372 does not compile for me

Did you know Arc 3.1 works on the latest MzScheme? [2]

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[1] Actually, you might be further disappointed to know (((((a!b 4) 'c) 'd) 'e) 'f) is currently compiling to:

  get('f')(get('e')(get('d')(get('c')(get(4)(get('b')(a))))));
get here is a JS function not unlike rocketnia's ref [3]. Its purpose is to disambiguate the Arc form (x y), which may compile to x(y), x[y] or (car (nthcdr y x)), depending on the type of x (function, array/object or cons, respectively).

[2] http://arclanguage.org/item?id=10254

[3] http://arclanguage.org/item?id=12102



2 points by evanrmurphy 5265 days ago | link

> (((((a!b 4) 'c) 'd) 'e) 'f) is currently compiling to:

  get('f')(get('e')(get('d')(get('c')(get(4)(get('b')(a))))));
I wrestled with this disambiguation problem for some time and finally settled (for now ;) on a simple inference system based on the most common use cases. The algorithm is:

1. If the form has a single quoted arg, as in (x 'y), it's compiled to x['y']. This allows object access chains like document!body!innerHTML to be compiled correctly by default.

2. If the form has 0 or 2+ args, or 1 arg that isn't quoted, then it's considered a function call:

  (x) => x()
  (x y) => x(y)
  (x y z) => x(y,z)
I'm still looking into the least kludgy way to pass a single quoted arg to a function. Here are some options:

  (x "y")
  (x `y)        ; quasiquote isn't currently used for anything else
  (x 'y nil)    ; the function can just ignore the nil arg
  (fncall x 'y)

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2 points by rocketnia 5264 days ago | link

What about something like this?

  callget!y.x
I don't know. If it comes up often enough, I think I'd rather have a special (fncall x 'y) ssyntax. Maybe x!y could expand to (fncall x 'y) and x.`y could expand to (x 'y).

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1 point by evanrmurphy 5263 days ago | link

I had assumed that since x.'y was read as two distinct symbols, x.`y would be too, but it's not the case:

  arc> 'x.'y
  x.
  arc> y   ; still evaluating previous expr
  arc> 'x.`y
  |x.`y|
Any idea why these are treated differently? Whatever the reason, it means I can use x.`y without hacking the reader. So, thanks for pointing this out to me! ^_^

I'm currently torn about whether to do

  x!y => (x 'y) => (fncall x 'y) => x('y')
  x.`y => (x `y) => (objref x 'y) => x['y']
as you suggested, or the reverse. Leaning toward your way so that functions are totally normal and objects special, rather than having functions with a single quoted arg be some exception.

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1 point by evanrmurphy 5263 days ago | link

So I went ahead and implemented it your way. ^_^ For an example of it in action, check out the following from the Hello JQuery tutorial at http://docs.jquery.com/Tutorials:Getting_Started_with_jQuery:

  $(document).ready(function() {
     $("a").click(function() {
       alert("Hello world!");
     });
   });
To reproduce this now using my arc-to-js compiler:

  ($.document.`ready (fn ()
    ($!a.`click (fn ()
      (alert "Hello world!")))))
"write much less, do more" ^_^

This example works particularly well because the $("a") jQuery selector can be compiled from $!a. A challenge arises with more complex selectors, as in this snippet from the Find Me: Using Selectors and Events tutorial:

  $(document).ready(function() {
     $("#orderedlist").addClass("red");
   });
Since $("#ordered list") has the special character #, we're unable to compile it from $!#orderedlist. Either most of the ssyntax has to be sacrificed for parens, as in

  ($.document.`ready (fn ()
    ((($ "#orderedlist") `addClass) "red")))
or Arc's get ssyntax must be used:

  ($.document.`ready (fn ()
    (.`addClass!red ($ "#orderedlist"))))
I hope to post updated source for js.arc and arc.js soon so that people who are interested can start trying out the compiler.

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1 point by evanrmurphy 5261 days ago | link

Does anyone know why the reader interprets x.'y as two symbols but x.`y as only one?

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2 points by fallintothis 5261 days ago | link

Not quite sure (I suspect it's a bug), but it seems like it has to do with the implementation of make-readtable (which brackets.scm uses).

  $ mzscheme
  Welcome to MzScheme v4.2.1 [3m], Copyright (c) 2004-2009 PLT Scheme Inc.
  > (parameterize ((current-readtable #f)) (read))
  x`y ; read in as two items
  x
  > y
  > (parameterize ((current-readtable (make-readtable #f))) (read))
  x`y ; read in as one symbol
  |x`y|
For braver people than me, you might check the source at http://github.com/plt/racket/blob/master/src/racket/src/read....

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1 point by waterhouse 5272 days ago | link

In fact arc3.1 even works on Racket, the new PLT Scheme. Only thing is that the command-line "racket" prints a newline after the "arc>" prompts, for some reason. But you can open as.scm with the editor DrRacket (as you could with DrScheme), set the language to be "Pretty Big", and hit Run; it will work.

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1 point by bogomipz 5272 days ago | link

Wow, it seems to work fine with Racket 5.0, and I don't notice any issues with the prompt.

This should be mentioned on http://www.arclanguage.org/install

Thanks for the hint, evanrmurphy!

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1 point by waterhouse 5271 days ago | link

For some reason, now I don't notice any issues with the "arc>" prompt in "racket" either. And I don't think I'm doing anything differently than I was before. ...I am forced to conclude that, when entering things into the REPL, I held down the return key long enough that it accepted an extra (blank) line of input. This explains the behavior exactly. Strange that I should have done this several times in a row... and how embarrassing. Oh well. At least now I can give racket a clean bill of health.

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1 point by prestonbriggs 5272 days ago | link

Not for me. Nor does it work with mzscheme. I get the complaint

ac.scm:1023:0: ffi-obj: couldn't get "setuid" from #f (The specified procedure could not be found.; errno=127)

Preston

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1 point by waterhouse 5271 days ago | link

That is a known issue with Windows. (I'm guessing it's the reason arc3 is still the "official" version on the install page.) Simple workaround[1]: Find the line that says:

  (define setuid (get-ffi-obj 'setuid #f (_fun _int -> _int)))
and replace it with

  (define (setuid x) x)
I have done this on at least two Windows computers and Arc ran fine afterwards.

[1]Source: http://arclanguage.org/item?id=10625

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1 point by prestonbriggs 5271 days ago | link

Got it, thanks.

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2 points by ylando 5270 days ago | link

Why arc do not have a normal web page; See:

  http://www.ruby-lang.org/en/
  http://www.python.org/
  http://www.perl.org/
  http://www.erlang.org/
  http://clojure.org/

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2 points by akkartik 5270 days ago | link

Because it's unfinished (and may remain so). See http://arclanguage.org and more recently http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1525323. No point sucking people in with a normal-looking webpage if the language isn't really ready for production use.

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1 point by evanrmurphy 5268 days ago | link

Could you talk about your decision to use it for Readwarp then? If Arc's not really ready for production use, might it still be a good choice for a certain minority of developers?

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2 points by akkartik 5268 days ago | link

Yeah, I'm not trying to say you shouldn't use it for production use :)

They're opposing perspectives. As a user of arc I'd throw it into production[1]. At the same time, from PG's perspective I'd want to be conservative about calling it production ready.

I suspect arc will never go out of 'alpha' no matter how mature it gets, just because PG and RTM will not enjoy having to provide support, or having to maintain compatibility.

[1] With some caveats: treat it as a white box, be prepared to hack on its innards, be prepared to dive into scheme and the FFI. And if you're saving state in flat files, be prepared for pain when going from 1 servers to 2.

Not all kinds of production are made the same.

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