Lambda the Ultimate

Oberon Script. A Lightweight Compiler and Runtime System for the Web. Ralph Sommerer

Oberon Script is a scripting language and runtime system for building interactive Web Client applications. It is based on the Oberon programming language and consists of a compiler that translates Oberon Script at load-time into JavaScript code, and a small runtime system that detects and compiles script sections written in Oberon Script.

People outside our field often don't relaize just how easy it is to implement languages: This project, for example, uses a recursive descent parser, and the entire compiler is 1081 lines of Javascript code.

The Hecl scripting language as a programming language isn't something that's pushing programming language design in interesting new directions. However, as a simple, dynamic language that's implemented in Java, it's pretty easy to figure out how it works, so perhaps this article on its design and implementation is of interest to those who aren't quite as advanced or passionate as most of the LtU readership, or who are interested in something to sink their teeth into before wading into something more difficult.

Additionally, because of the very fact that it is small and simple, it has a practical application: the runtime runs on even older, slower J2ME-enabled cell phones.

I originally wrote the article for a European Linux magazine, but didn't like their terms, so I decided to just put it up on my web site:

http://www.dedasys.com/articles/hecl_implementation.html

We discussed the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis (also called the Linguistic Relativity Hypothesis) many times, and it is a topic that is worth revisiting if you are interested in the way language influences mind. While it is true that what we know about natural languages doesn't have to match the way programming languages influence our programming style, it is still worthwhile to discuss the possibility.

For many years Sapir-Whorf was considered very problematic, since empirical findings didn't seem to support the theory: no real cognitive differences that could be attributed to language were found. More recently, linguistic relativity became more respectable, and indeed important work is being done in this field.

I suggest reading Gumperz and Levinson's introduction from the book they edited Rethinking Linguistic Relativity (1996, Cambridge University Press).

Also from Levinson is Language and mind: Let’s get the issues straight! from the 2003 book Language in mind: Advances in the study of language and cognition (D. Gentner & S. Goldin-Meadow, eds.)