Summary
The next version of the Cat programming language, contains namespaces and type annotations.

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The upcoming version of Cat, which is still undergoing testing, implements type annotations and namespaces.

The type annotation of Cat is based on the idea that every program, or subprogram, is a transition from one stack to another. For example the following is the type annotation for several of the atomic programs of Cat (the primitives if you prefer):

  + : (int int) -> (int)
  - : (int int) -> (int)
  and : (bool bool) -> (bool)
  > : (int int) -> (bool)
  pop : (any) -> ()
  dup : (any) -> (any any)

Some programs have side-effects, and these are annotated differently:

  rnd : () ~> (int)
  write : (any) ~> (any)  

A program which has no side-effects, is called a function, whereas a program with side-effects is called a subroutine.

Cat now also supports scopes. A namespace is just a named scope. This addition makes it much easier to write non-trivial software using Cat.

Here is what some sample programs look like in the upcoming Cat:

define clear : (any*) ~> ()
{
  [pop] [is_stack_empty not] while
}

define simple_test : () -> (int)
{
  0 1 +
}

define nested_test : () -> (int)
{
  define f : () -> (int)
  {
    1
  }

  define plus_one : (int) -> (int)
  {
    1 +
  }

  f plus_one
}

namespace X
{
  define f : (int) -> (int)
  {
    2 +
  }
}

namespace Y
{
  define f : (int) -> (int)
  {
    3 +
  }
}

define main : () ~> ()
{
  "expect 1" write simple_test write clear
  "expect 2" write nested_test write clear
  "expect 3" write 1 X.f write clear
  "expect 4" write 1 Y.f write clear
}

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About the Blogger

Christopher Diggins is a software developer and freelance writer. Christopher loves programming, but is eternally frustrated by the shortcomings of modern programming languages. As would any reasonable person in his shoes, he decided to quit his day job to write his own ( www.heron-language.com ). Christopher is the co-author of the C++ Cookbook from O'Reilly. Christopher can be reached through his home page at www.cdiggins.com.