All About Eve

Most programming languages today look fairly similar. There’s small differences, of course (Python using spaces, Ruby and Perl have some odd-looking constructs). In the 1960s and 1970s, though, a lot of programming languages were pretty cryptic. Algol, APL, and LISP are great examples of unusual looking programming languages. Even FORTRAN and PL/1 were hard to read. RPG and COBOL were attempts to make programming more accessible, although you could argue that neither of them took over the world. Most programming languages today have more similarity to FORTRAN than either of those two languages.

A new programming language, Eve, claims to be based on years of research in programming from a human perspective instead of from the computer’s. The result is a language that works by pattern matching instead of the usual flow of control. It is also made to live inside of Markdown documents that can serve as documentation. You can see a video about Eve, below.

Neither of these are totally new ideas. SNOBOL, AWK, and Prolog all have some pattern-matching involved. [Donald Knuth] was promoting literate programming back in the 1980s. However, Eve understands modern constructs like web browsers.

You can explore Eve a little on the web. Don’t ignore the buttons at the top right of the page. They allow you to run the Eve code and even inspect it. Just make sure the checkbox in the top right corner of each code snippet has a check in it. Or, click the examples text at the top left and read through some of the examples, like “Flappy Eve,” for example.

We’ve talked about literate programming earlier this year. If you want the opposite of Eve, maybe Rust would suit you.

Filed under: software hacks

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