Re: "Little languages" and type-checking

[Enrico Colombini <erix@...>]

>If you want to see a "not-so-little" language with both static 
>and dynamic type-checking, which hardly ever gets in the way, 
>which provides an easy way to extend control structures as well 
>as object structures, and which comes with a lovely UI framework,
>take a look at Dylan. <http://www.functionalobjects.com/> 
>I probably would use it for everything if it were not for two 
>little problems: the only adequate implementation is Windows-only, 
>and there is not a lot of certainty about it's future. (It also costs 
>money but I think the price is reasonable for what you get.)
>Still, it's a great language design and well worth looking at IMHO.

Good old Dylan... I played with it for a while (a couple of programs of
mine are on the Apple Dylan CD) and saw it evolve from a lean, simple
language through a series of ever larger, slower implementations. Just what
I wouldn't like to see happen to Lua.
(nice language, though; and the Apple implementation had some bright ideas
- too bad it was killed by Apple's financial crisis).

  Enrico