D is a systems programming language from Digital Mars that focuses on “combining the power and high performance of C and C++ with the programmer productivity of modern languages like Ruby and Python.” While still being a statically typed language that compiles directly to native code, the syntax looks very much like Java or C# but it has some interesting advances.
Creating a new JVM based language has recently hit the for with the news of the proposed Ceylon project. In fact, the JVM already has a diverse set of languages, both statically typed and dynamically typed. What does it take for a new language to hit the mark?
Gavin King, creator of Hibernate, gave a presentation at QCon Beijing on the Ceylon JVM language. Ceylon addresses some limitations of the Java programming language although the project is near the inception phase, with no compiler or IDE support. Since its existence leaked out over twitter, there has been a lot of speculation about the language; read on to find out more from Gavin King
Erlang Co-creators, Joe Armstrong and Robert Virding, admit that Erlang is heavily inspired by the Java world. In an interview at ErlangFactory 2011 SF, they reveal how Scala Actors had shaped their work in what they then called Erlang Processes. Moreover, they acknowledge the fact that Erlang's VM is barely a clone of the famous JVM.
While Mono usually strives to follow the C# and Common Language Infrastructure specifications, it does occasionally go beyond them. While some features such as SIMD support are backwards-compatible with .NET, runtime supported continuations are exclusive to Mono.
Mono had a dirty little secret. Until recently it used the portable but woefully inaccurate Boehm-Demers-Weiser conservative garbage collector. After two long years of work Mono is making the shift to a new generational garbage collector that is specific to the CLR and far more precise than anything they’ve had before.
The first RC for JRuby 1.6 is out and brings improved Ruby 1.9.2 compatibility, experimental C extensions support, improved Windows support, Ruby Gems Maven support, performance and profiling improvements and more. InfoQ talked to JRuby's Charles Nutter about JRuby 1.6, the impact of Java 7 on JRuby, new language features in Ruby and much more.
The rather extensive runtime library used by Visual Basic and its compiler has been a major stumbling block for the language. Both the Windows Phone 7 and the XBox 360 don’t support the library, making clumsy workarounds necessary. With Visual Basic 10 SP 1, Microsoft once again tries to get it right.
The new Async CPT for VB and C# looks like it may actually make it into the core language. But with all the emphasis on multi-core systems, why is Microsoft investing so heavily in syntax for designed specifically for making single-threaded asynchronous programming easier?
Last month Vladimir Kelman asked if it were possible to use F# with the new Razor view engine. After talking with Scott Guthrie and Marcin Dobosz we learned that it is possible, if you want to put in the effort to build all necessary plugins yourself.
MonoDevelop has become the third IDE to support Microsoft’s F# language. With .NET support essentially dead on the Eclipse IDE and WebMatrix being targeted for causal developers, it is likely to be the last IDE to add support for it in the foreseeable future.
In a post entitled Re-thinking JDK7, Mark Reinhold put forward a suggestion that certain previously planned elements of JDK7 be suspended until JDK8 in order to get the release out of the door sooner rather than later. What does the community think of this suggestion? Read on to find out.