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The Design of Design

By Dave, on October 28th, 2010

I just finished up reading “The Design of Design” by Fred Brookes JR (author of the Mythical Man Month):

This book is a reflection on the design process itself and, in particular, what good designers are made of.  Overall, I feel surprisingly positive about it, and basically enjoyed it.  Reading between . . . → Read More: The Design of Design

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Implementing Actors on the JVM

By Dave, on October 25th, 2010

Whiley adopts the [[Actor model]] of concurrency, instead of the traditional [[Thread (computer science)|multi-threading]] approach used in e.g. Java.  The actor model is simple and easy to use, and is less likely to result in complex [[race condition|race conditions]] or [[deadlock|deadlocks]]. The Actor Model has been around for a while, but Erlang has recently . . . → Read More: Implementing Actors on the JVM

8 comments   Development   , , ,  

Indentation Syntax in Whiley

By Dave, on October 18th, 2010

Like Python, Whiley uses indentation syntax instead of curly braces for delimiting blocks.  When I started using indentation syntax with Python, I was pretty skeptical, but  it grew on me fast and now I really like it.  However, this wasn’t the only reason I chose to use indentation syntax in Whiley.  The other is . . . → Read More: Indentation Syntax in Whiley

2 comments   Development   ,  

Function Pointer Syntax for Whiley

By Dave, on October 11th, 2010

One of the next big issues needing to be addressed is the syntax for [[function pointers|function and method pointers]].  The syntax I’m thinking of is close to that used in C and C++ (see e.g. here and here).  My initial idea results in something like this:

define MyComparator as { int compareTo(MyRecord,MyRecord) }

This . . . → Read More: Function Pointer Syntax for Whiley

4 comments   Development   ,  

Field Resolution in Whiley

By Dave, on October 5th, 2010

An interesting issue has arisen as a result of my recent decision to move away from a declared-type model.  The issue is essentially about [[Scope (programming)|scope resolution]] of fields and local variables.   For example, consider the following:

define MyProc as process { int f } void MyProc::m(int x): f = x

Now, m(int) is . . . → Read More: Field Resolution in Whiley

One comment   Development   , ,  

Better Namespaces

By Dave, on October 4th, 2010

An interesting problem I’ve encountered many times in Java is that of conflicting names.  For example,  suppose I have the following code:

import wyil.lang.*; import wyil.lang.Type.*; … public static Type T_Bool = new Type.Bool();

This is all well and good.  The problem arises when I want to import another class called Type from some . . . → Read More: Better Namespaces

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