AI-powered
podcast player
Listen to all your favourite podcasts with AI-powered features
Software Unscripted
Tooling-Aware Language Design with Eli Dowling
Aug 21, 2024
Eli Dowling, a contributor to the Roc programming language, delves into the fascinating world of language design and editor tooling. The discussion highlights innovative error recovery in parsers, the benefits of tree-sitter, and the complexities of macros. Eli shares insights on the balance between functionality and user experience, especially in code editors. They explore the implications of implementing hygienic macros and the challenges of enum types, emphasizing the need for clarity and simplicity in programming languages.
01:11:59
Episode guests
AI Summary
AI Chapters
Episode notes
Podcast summary created with Snipd AI
Quick takeaways
- Eli Dowling's journey into functional programming began with F#, leading to his contributions in ROC and its optimizations for immutable data structures.
- The integration of efficient tooling in programming language design, such as semantic navigation via TreeSitter, significantly enhances productivity and user experience.
Deep dives
Entry into Functional Programming
The journey into functional programming for Eli Dowling began with learning F#, a language he was familiar with due to his prior experience with the .NET ecosystem. This introduction sparked an interest that eventually led him to discover other languages and research papers relevant to functional programming, including one on the Perseus project. The unique features of ROC, particularly its high-performance immutable data structures leveraging reference counting, stood out to him as significant advancements. Dowling's exploration of the functional programming landscape highlighted the performance challenges he faced with linked lists and immutable data structures, leading him to appreciate ROC's optimizations.
Get the Snipd
podcast app
Unlock the knowledge in podcasts with the podcast player of the future.
AI-powered
Discover
highlights
Listen to the best highlights from the podcasts you love and dive into the full episode
Save any
moment
Hear something you like? Tap your headphones to save it with AI-generated key takeaways
Share
& Export
Send highlights to Twitter, WhatsApp or export them to Notion, Readwise & more
AI-powered
podcast player
Listen to all your favourite podcasts with AI-powered features
Discover
highlights
Listen to the best highlights from the podcasts you love and dive into the full episode