Lambda the Ultimate

Version 1.6.1 of the Open Quark Framework for Java has been released.

Open Quark is a BSD-licensed lazy functional runtime for Java, with a native language called CAL.
The motivation for Open Quark is to allow embedding of lazy functional logic within Java applications, including full functional metaprogramming (under Java control) if required. The framework also allows standalone CAL applications to be created.

This release is notable for its inclusion of libraries for parallel programming (the prior version, 1.6.0, having experimental support for this, but without library support).

The full release notes for this release can be found here.

Downloads are available on the main Open Quark site.

Feedback and other contributions to the project are very welcome. Please visit our discussion forum.

Erlang is getting a lot of attention these days (LtU was there first, of course: we had in depth discussions of Erlang several years ago). One recent discussion is around Tim Bray's experiments with Erlang. Steve Vinoski provides timing results showing the effect of utilizing Erlangs concurrency features on Tim's challenge.

BBC reports:

The organisation behind the project has launched the "give one, get one" scheme that will allow US residents to purchase two laptops for $399 (£198).

One laptop will be sent to the buyer whilst a child in the developing world will receive the second machine

The G1G1 scheme, as it is known, will offer the laptops for just two weeks, starting on the 12 November.

OLPC is a very worthy project which probably needs your support, and buying a machine is a fun way to support the project while also enjoying a remarkable machine.

The OLPC programming environment includes not only Python etc. but also Squeak, and the firmware uses Forth, so the OLPC will probably be attractive to language hackers.

No obvious connection between these links, other than future(s). First up is The future will be about programming languages an MP3 recording of a talk from Ted Neward:

During this [hour long] Jazoon keynote Ted Neward talks about why the next five years in IT will be about languages. The programming language virtualization, tools, linguistic focus and expressiveness are different forces that are coming of age. Not to mention the impact of the over-used and over-hyped Domain-Specific languages.

Though I wanted to enjoy a talk that touches on the importance of PL diversity, (with mentions of FP, AOP, Lisp, Ruby, Groovy, Intercal, and Ook), I didn't really gather much new. The audience is Java programmers, so perhaps the ideas are a tad revolutionary for that crowd. Still, might be of interest to those who want to know how PL innovations might play out in Java land.

On a different note, one possible way to gather prognistications is to conduct a poll asking readers about the Top 10 programming languages of the future. But then you end up with answers that look disturbingly similar to what people are doing in the present. Hopefully Ehud's query will yield more intriguing results.

Finally, there are a couple of articles on futures as a PL feature for concurrent programming: Futures in Objective-C and Microsoft's planned library to Optimize Managed Code For Multi-Core Machines which has tasks and futures. Alice ML demonstrates that futures can be a powerful PL feature. But we do run square into the question of whether providing a feature as a library really gives the same level of expressiveness that one gains from integrating it into the core of a language. Still, it's nice to see futures starting to come into wider play.