I wrote this paper for my graduate-level programming languages class as a final project. Here’s the introduction:

There are some readable programming languages out there, and there are powerful programming languages as well, but how often do the two meet? It would be ideal to have both readability and power in a language, but it seems as though one comes at the cost of another. Lisp is an incredibly powerful language, but it is not very readable due to its syntax. Ruby has some constructs that make code read almost like English, but its speed has been criticized when compared with other dynamic languages. Still other languages offer convenience to the programmer through their unique features.

Perhaps it is a pipe dream, but it would be nice if a single language could combine speed, expressiveness, readability of code, and power, all while being convenient and intuitive to write. Some would argue that these traits are already included in an existing language, and the degree to which these goals are met is certainly subjective. Since one person’s elegant construct may be another’s cluttered obfuscation, let this paper then reflect this particular developer’s description of a more perfect language. The goal is to select the nicest features from existing languages as well as include other features that perhaps have not been seen before. The result might not be easily implementable, but that is the scope of this paper as well: to explore interesting ideas for a language beyond what is already known to work.
— One Programmer’s Ideal Language by Sarah Vessels

Read the full paper »