dusa-evaluation-checklist.txt

Programming Language Checklist
by Colin McMillen, Jason Reed, and Elly Fong-Jones, 2011-10-10.

For the Dusa programming language, https://dusa.rocks

You appear to be advocating a new:
[ ] functional  [ ] imperative  [ ] object-oriented  [ ] procedural [ ] stack-based
[ ] "multi-paradigm"  [ ] lazy  [x] eager  [ ] statically-typed  [x] dynamically-typed
[x] pure  [ ] impure  [ ] non-hygienic  [ ] visual  [ ] beginner-friendly
[ ] non-programmer-friendly  [x] completely incomprehensible
programming language.  Your language will not work.  Here is why it will not work.

You appear to believe that:
[ ] Syntax is what makes programming difficult
[x] Garbage collection is free                [x] Computers have infinite memory
[x] Nobody really needs:
    [x] concurrency  [ ] a REPL  [x] debugger support  [x] IDE support  [x] I/O
    [x] to interact with code not written in your language
[ ] The entire world speaks 7-bit ASCII
[ ] Scaling up to large software projects will be easy
[x] Convincing programmers to adopt a new language will be easy
[ ] Convincing programmers to adopt a language-specific IDE will be easy
[x] Programmers love writing lots of boilerplate
[ ] Specifying behaviors as "undefined" means that programmers won't rely on them
[x] "Spooky action at a distance" makes programming more fun

Unfortunately, your language (has/lacks):
[-] comprehensible syntax  [-] semicolons  [-] significant whitespace  [-] macros
[-] implicit type conversion  [-] explicit casting  [-] type inference
[-] goto  [-] exceptions  [-] closures  [-] tail recursion  [-] coroutines
[-] reflection  [-] subtyping  [-] multiple inheritance  [-] operator overloading
[+] algebraic datatypes  [+] recursive types  [-] polymorphic types
[?] covariant array typing  [-] monads  [-] dependent types
[~] infix operators  [-] nested comments  [-] multi-line strings  [-] regexes
[-] call-by-value  [-] call-by-name  [-] call-by-reference  [-] call-cc

The following philosophical objections apply:
[ ] Programmers should not need to understand category theory to write "Hello, World!"
[ ] Programmers should not develop RSI from writing "Hello, World!"
[ ] The most significant program written in your language is its own compiler
[x] The most significant program written in your language isn't even its own compiler
[ ] No language spec
[ ] "The implementation is the spec"
   [ ] The implementation is closed-source  [ ] covered by patents  [ ] not owned by you
[ ] Your type system is unsound  [ ] Your language cannot be unambiguously parsed
   [ ] a proof of same is attached
   [ ] invoking this proof crashes the compiler
[ ] The name of your language makes it impossible to find on Google
[x] Interpreted languages will never be as fast as C
[ ] Compiled languages will never be "extensible"
[ ] Writing a compiler that understands English is AI-complete
[ ] Your language relies on an optimization which has never been shown possible
[ ] There are less than 100 programmers on Earth smart enough to use your language
[x] ___Boolean satisfiability___ takes exponential time
[ ] ____________________________ is known to be undecidable

Your implementation has the following flaws:
[ ] CPUs do not work that way
[ ] RAM does not work that way
[ ] VMs do not work that way
[ ] Compilers do not work that way
[ ] Compilers cannot work that way
[ ] Shift-reduce conflicts in parsing seem to be resolved using rand()
[x] You require the compiler to be present at runtime
[x] You require the language runtime to be present at compile-time
[ ] Your compiler errors are completely inscrutable
[ ] Dangerous behavior is only a warning
[ ] The compiler crashes if you look at it funny
[ ] The VM crashes if you look at it funny
[x] You don't seem to understand basic optimization techniques
[x] You don't seem to understand basic systems programming
[ ] You don't seem to understand pointers
[x] You don't seem to understand functions

Additionally, your marketing has the following problems:
[ ] Unsupported claims of increased productivity
[ ] Unsupported claims of greater "ease of use"
[ ] Obviously rigged benchmarks
   [ ] Graphics, simulation, or crypto benchmarks where your code just calls
       handwritten assembly through your FFI
   [ ] String-processing benchmarks where you just call PCRE
   [ ] Matrix-math benchmarks where you just call BLAS
[x] Noone really believes that your language is faster than:
    [ ] assembly  [ ] C  [ ] FORTRAN  [ ] Java  [ ] Ruby  [x] Prolog
[x] Rejection of orthodox programming-language theory without justification
[x] Rejection of orthodox systems programming without justification
[x] Rejection of orthodox algorithmic theory without justification
[x] Rejection of basic computer science without justification

Taking the wider ecosystem into account, I would like to note that:
[ ] Your complex sample code would be one line in: _______________________
[ ] We already have an unsafe imperative language
[ ] We already have a safe imperative OO language
[ ] We already have a safe statically-typed eager functional language
[ ] You have reinvented Lisp but worse
[ ] You have reinvented Javascript but worse
[ ] You have reinvented Java but worse
[ ] You have reinvented C++ but worse
[ ] You have reinvented PHP but worse
[ ] You have reinvented PHP better, but that's still no justification
[ ] You have reinvented Brainfuck but non-ironically

In conclusion, this is what I think of you:
[x] You have some interesting ideas, but this won't fly.
[ ] This is a bad language, and you should feel bad for inventing it.
[x] Programming in this language is an adequate punishment for inventing it.