[RFC] Cat: A Typed Functional Stack Based Language
I have posted a near final draft (in PDF and PS format) of my paper on the semantics of Cat at http://www.cat-language.com/paper.html, and I wanted to make a public request for comments.
Here is the abstract:
Cat: A Typed Functional Stack Based Language
Stack-based application languages, such as Forth and Postscript, traditionally have provided little or no support for functional programming and have lacked a formal static type system. This changed when Manfred von Thun introduced Joy, a functional stack-based language, and Stephan Becher provided an implementation of StrongForth, a dialect of Forth with an informal type system. This paper introduces the semantics and type system for a pure functional programming language which is entirely stack based.
February 1st, 2007 at 8:53 pm
I think your paper is fabulous and will give the Haskell community something to think about.
Although I’m not in the strong typing camp, I do see the need for a typed purelely functional stack language.
Anyway, your work and writings on Cat is certainly promoting concatenative languages on a whole and make them more accessible to the mainstream or functional purist otherwise.
I guess that if you can make Cat really efficient (as you claim), I might consider implementing Enchilada on top of Cat.
But if you don’t then I would have to consider Factor :)
I’ll be watching your blog closely.
- Robbert.