ANN: Dao, the official 1.0 version is released

[Limin Fu]

Hi,

This is to announce the first official release of Dao.

Dao is a simple yet powerful object-oriented programming language with
many advanced features including, soft (or optional) typing, BNF-like
macro system, regular expression, multi-dimensional numeric array,
closure, coroutine, asynchronous function call for concurrent
programming etc. Dao provides a rich set of standard data types,
methods and libraries. Dao is implemented as a light and efficient
virtual machine with very transparent C programming interfaces, which
make it easy to extend Dao with C/C++ or embed Dao into C/C++
programs.

There have been a lot of improvements since the last release
including: a lot of bug fixing and some broken feature fixing; several
large implementation changes to improve the structure and clarity of
the codes; and some implementation of new features. For the details,
please have a look at: http://www.daovm.net/?page=dao_whats_new.

Besides the improvements to the language and its implementation, the
modules, tools, documentations and website associated with this
language have also been improved greatly. The documentations are more
complete than before, and are prepared in nice formats for easy
referencing. A number of demos are also included in the release,
including some programs for the The Computer Language Benchmarks Game,
which can be tried out just for fun.

One automatic tool (tools/autobind.dao) was developed using Dao
itself, and was used to create most of the released Dao extending
modules, by generating wrappers directly from the header files of the
corresponding C/C++ libraries. This tool could also be used to wrap
other C/C++ library as necessary.

A new website that was developed using Dao itself too, has been setup
at http://www.daovm.net, and is going to be the new official website
of Dao. This new website will be established as a serious platform to
promote the spreading of Dao and to grow a community of its users.

Links:
Home: http://www.daovm.net
Document: http//www.daovm.net/?page=document_en
Download: http//www.daovm.net/?page=download_en
Forum: http//www.daovm.net/?forum

Have fun.

Limin

 

[skip]

Limin> This is to announce the first official release of Dao.

What's the connection to Python?

 

[Tim Greer]

Hi,

This is to announce the first official release of Dao.

Dao is a simple yet powerful object-oriented programming language

So, you pimp your language in news groups for other languages? I see
your off topic post in 3 language groups I frequent, that's not the way
to get interest in your language.

 

[Limin Fu]

Honest to say, there is no solid connection between Dao and Python.
It's just that I had received some good suggestions and comments from
these groups when I made a few previous announcements in these groups.
So I guessed somebody might be interested in Dao, and thought it might
be a good idea to announce it here again.

Nevertheless, Python is one of the few languages from which Dao tried
to learn something. I have paid a lot of my attention to Python during
the development of Dao. Once a time I even created a module trying to
allow calling Python functions and using python objects in Dao
scripts, it was a long time ago, probably even before this language is
named as Dao. Unfortunately I hadn't time to continue to develop that
module.


To Tim Greer and others:

Some people may think this kind of announcement are off topic in a
group for another language. This is not exactly true. This is still
about programming, there are so many programmers out there, who knows
if there would be somebody interested in a new language. This
announcement does not mean to threaten any language, I don't even
think it is somewhere close to that. So take it easy.

 

[Tim Greer]

To Tim Greer and others:

Some people may think this kind of announcement are off topic in a
group for another language. This is not exactly true. This is still
about programming, there are so many programmers out there, who knows
if there would be somebody interested in a new language. This
announcement does not mean to threaten any language, I don't even
think it is somewhere close to that. So take it easy.

I don't see it as a threat at all (I'm not sure how you read that from
what I said), and I honestly don't care that much, but it seems pretty
odd to post about a completely different language in groups that have
no relation. Imagine people posting announcements about languages,
modules, extensions, etc in other language groups as they happened,
we'd see 1/2 the group's posts containing that sort of information.

You posted in the Python, Perl and Ruby groups, and it just seemed (was)
inappropriate and not a good way to get people interested (it can be a
turn off to see what could be considered spam). Just because it's
another language doesn't make it on topic. There are over a hundred of
them out there, and even more derivatives and it's just not usually
appreciated (though I don't pretend to speak for anyone else, but it's
a pretty accurate observation).

I don't assume ill intent by you, but it was questionable about why.
Anyway, it's not a knock on the language, I just don't think the Perl,
Ruby or Python groups are relevant (but maybe some people will find it
interesting and be glad you did -- of course, that could be said of any
post about anything).

 

[skip]

Limin> Honest to say, there is no solid connection between Dao and
Limin> Python. It's just that I had received some good suggestions and
Limin> comments from these groups when I made a few previous
Limin> announcements in these groups. So I guessed somebody might be
Limin> interested in Dao, and thought it might be a good idea to
Limin> announce it here again.

Saying just that in your announcement would have been enough, in my opinion
to establish the connection. It's just that there was no mention of Python
at all in your announcement. So I asked.

 

[Daniel Fetchinson]

This is to announce the first official release of Dao.

So, you pimp your language in news groups for other languages? I see
your off topic post in 3 language groups I frequent, that's not the way
to get interest in your language.

Why this hostility? The guy has worked on an interesting piece of
software and tries to promote it to people who are most probably
interested in programming languages. What's wrong with that? Some
people occasionally ask general computer/linux/IT/etc questions simply
because they think that the probability of finding somebody among
python list followers who knows the answer (and is willing to share
his/her knowledge) is high and since the topic is
computer/linux/IT/etc it's not super far from things which are
explicitly on topic.

No need for any hatred or hostility towards people who write a new
programming language, I bet many people on this list are interested in
this kind of stuff.

Cheers,
Daniel

 

[Limin Fu]

i agree it's not clear how this is related to python (although i can see
the influence), but it does look like a nice language.
thanks.


one thing i was surprised to find missing was that the discussion of types
doesn't include classes (the discussion of macros doesn't include types,

Actually the documentation about types does not mean to explain the
types in a systematic way. It just tries to explain how to practically
use them implicitly and explicitly, and to point out where one should
pay attention. Classes surely should be discussed, but it didn't come
into my mind when I prepared the documentation. It will be discussed
when I update the document.

but that is more understandable).  i am wondering if you have hidden
problems related to co and contra variance of types (like in java
generics).

I have paid attention to the variance of types in some situations, but
I am not very sure if it is without problems. Until now, I still feel
there are still many things to be improved in the typing system. It
would not be surprising if there are hidden problems regarding this.

also, why is "@" needed as well as yield?  in python, the presence of
yield makes "@" implicit (i think).

You are right. I will change this. Thank you for pointing out this.

I am glad that, every time I announced the language in the python
mailing list, I received good comments and suggestions more often than
in other mailing lists and groups, that's why python mailing list is
one of the first places coming into my mind when I plan for an
announcement of Dao

 

[Terry Reedy]

Why this hostility?

Why your hostility to people asking questions and making comments and
statements in response to a boilerplate announcement?

The guy has worked on an interesting piece of
software and tries to promote it to people who are most probably
interested in programming languages. What's wrong with that?

There are probably a hundred other 'interesting pieces of software' that
could be announced here. What the OP make no attempt to do was craft a
post actually directed to this particular group. Something like 'It has
the following influences from Python...' or 'Here is how it compares to
Python...'. Either would have made it a communication rather than a
blind broadcast.

> Some
people occasionally ask general computer/linux/IT/etc questions simply
because they think that the probability of finding somebody among
python list followers who knows the answer (and is willing to share
his/her knowledge) is high and since the topic is
computer/linux/IT/etc it's not super far from things which are
explicitly on topic.

Mostly those are people who have posted Python questions and comments
before and otherwise are people planning to implement the answer in
Python.

No need for any hatred or hostility towards people who write a new
programming language,

I did not see any such thing. The mild hostility was directed at the
act of blind spamming, which we have had more than enough of.

Terry

 

[Daniel Fetchinson]

This is to announce the first official release of Dao.

Why your hostility to people asking questions and making comments and
statements in response to a boilerplate announcement?


There are probably a hundred other 'interesting pieces of software' that
could be announced here.

There are tons of 'interesting pieces of software' that are actually
announced here. And there is nothing wrong with that.

What the OP make no attempt to do was craft a
post actually directed to this particular group. Something like 'It has
the following influences from Python...' or 'Here is how it compares to
Python...'. Either would have made it a communication rather than a
blind broadcast.

A blind broadcast serves a purpose, namely if someone knows nothing
about this language, he/she will get to know that it exists. This is a
useful purpose especially because the probability that people wish to
know about the existence of the OP's new language is quite high (I
suppose) among c.l.p readers. For example they can go to the website
and see how it was influenced by python or how it compares to it.

Mostly those are people who have posted Python questions and comments
before and otherwise are people planning to implement the answer in
Python.


I did not see any such thing. The mild hostility was directed at the
act of blind spamming, which we have had more than enough of.

Well, there are lots of OT postings but in my estimation those that
mention another language generate more hostility than those that
don't. I don't see any reason for this increased hostility relative to
other OT postings, hence I made my remark.

Cheers,
Daniel

 

[Daniel Fetchinson]

Why this hostility? The guy has worked on an interesting piece of

Because there's no particular reason for it to be in a Python-specific
forum.

Yes there is, for example I found it useful (I'm interested in dynamic
languages but I'm only subscribed to c.l.p) maybe others too. Gave me
a much needed 5 minutes of recreational reading of his website which
was just about perfect while drinking my coffee during coffee break

The value of a Python-specific forum is directly reduced by the
amount of off-topic noise that occurs in it.

Yes, but not everything that is off-topic is noise.

The hostility is because we need to kick the camel's nose of “just
one clearly off-topic discussion” out of the tent to avoid the whole
camel coming in.

Are you seriously worried that c.l.p will be overtaken by zealous dao fans?

Cheers,
Daniel