Three key concepts comprise the essence of functional programming: first-order functions, pure functions, and immutable data. Together they express a fundamental architectural paradigm on how units of code interact with each other. […]
Finally, a big step for Leaf: something that could be called an actual program. Over the weekend I finished a program that loads a file, sorts the lines, and writes it to […]
As types are a keystone in Leaf, working with them must be fluid and simple. I recently improved this area by adding named constructors and bare type names. The results are interesting. […]
Language support for caching sucks. Despite an ever present need to cache data and calculations most languages require the programmer to do all the work. There’s no way to track dependencies, no […]
I can’t decide whether a.size or size(a) is more correct when getting the length of an array. While writing Leaf I have a recurrent feeling that perhaps a.size is wrong. What is […]
I came upon a problem with bitwise complement (logical not): it isn’t safe. It’s nothing new, but it really registered while implementing the logical operations in Leaf. The issue is the result […]
Optional values are one of the fundamental extrinsic types in Leaf, as are shared values. Originally optional values were used just like regular values, dereferenced automatically. I was always uncertain of that. […]
