David's Computer Stuff Journal

This looks kind of interesting:

http://wiki.reia-lang.org/wiki/Reia_Programming_Language

In short: it's a Ruby/Python type of language on top of Erlang. It has a mishmash of Ruby and Python syntax, and also does objects, implemented as Erlang processes.

Funny quote:

Reia uses an indentation-sensitive syntax. This allows Reia to look similar to Erlang without relying on "ant turd" tokens (i.e. , ; and .) to structure relationships between forms.

That made me laugh, and is in all seriousness, something that I do find to be a bit annoying in Erlang, especially when refactoring code. You can't just move a line of code from one place to another; you move it, then change the line endings in both places.

My preference would be to do something more Ruby style rather than Python style for the following reason: the indentation thing makes it harder to use straight-up Python for templating purposes, whereas Ruby can be used as-is. Templates are something that I wouldn't particularly want to do in Erlang, either, so doing them with this language might be a very nice alternative.

Anyway, it looks to be in its infancy. Unfortunately, it seems to require a more recent version of Erlang than what ships with Ubuntu Hardy. Maybe Intrepid will have something recent enough to run it.

It's a little known fact that I originally wrote Hecl in Erlang, although, sadly, I can't find the code any more.