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layout: post
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title: "Choosing the right platform"
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date: 2019-12-07
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categories: Programming
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tags: language
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theme: dark
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---
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After wrapping my head around the [rational](/programming/rational-and-a-name/) of
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[My new programming language](/programming/my-new-programming-language/), I have
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a big decision to make. Choose a platform.
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As programmers, we have a tough life when it comes to making a decision that
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has direct impact on our product. I'm pretty sure you went through this process
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at least once. From choosing a semantically great name for a variable to choosing
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a right technology for your next billion dollar startup. It is always hard to
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pick a tech stack for a new project. Specially when the new product happens to be
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a new programming language. If I get my hands dirty with a wrong tech stack for
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a simple web application, no big deal. I still can rewrite the whole thing and
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pay a penalty. But in case of programming languages that's not the case. Wrong
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platform can easily destroy you. From the dawn of computers, many smart people
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created tons of languages. But only few of them made it to the top. While there
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are so many reasons for their success, going with the right platform is one
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the most important ones.
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The obvious question that comes to mind when we're talking about "The platform"
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is that should we build a platform from scratch or should we piggyback on others?
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Creating a programming language and a virtual machine from scratch is gigantic and
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bone crushing task. It needs a crazy set of skills and knowledge. Even with such
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wisdom and experience people who went through it has made many mistakes and had to
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constantly iterate to come up with the right implementation. The evolution of
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programming languages such as [Scheme](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scheme_%28programming_language%29)
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is a good example of it (for more information take a look at [R6RS](http://www.r6rs.org/)).
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While I think creating a programming language and a VM from scratch is really fun,
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but it can be really frustrating as well. I don't want to get annoyed with myself
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during the process and abandon my goal. I should ride on the shoulders of the giants
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to gain benefit from their great work. I should choose a platform that helps me to
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move faster and iterate through different ideas quicker.
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From technical perspective, Starting from scratch means that I have to write a
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program that includes at least a parser and a compiler. Building a compiler
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is no joke. Hypothetically let's say we have a working compiler and parser, What
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about use libraries and ecosystem ?? It would be really hard to convince people
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to use a programming language that does not have any useful library and they have
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to build everything by themselves. It might have been the case 30 years ago but
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it is not the case in the modern age of programming languages anymore.
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So the idea of creating [Serene](https://serene-lang.org) from scratch is out of
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the picture. We need to find a good platform for it. But what are the options ???
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## Racket
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> Racket is a general-purpose programming language as well as the world’s first ecosystem
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> for language-oriented programming. Make your dream language, or use one of the dozens
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> already available.
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[Racket](http://racket-lang.org) is a dialect of Lisp which allows us to build our own
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language by extending it. While Racket is really cool and have long list of pros and
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[many reasons why to use it](https://beautifulracket.com/appendix/why-racket-why-lisp.html)
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(It's Lisp after all), it has a disadvantage that forced me to stop thinking about it
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for **Serene**. As I mentioned in the [rational](/programming/rational-and-a-name/)
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I'm not trying to build a toy language or a domain specific one and Racket's ecosystem
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isn't as great as a battle tested and well-known ecosystem like Java or Python (or other
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popular ecosystems).
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## Javascript
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We're living in the age of Web and one of the big players in this era is Javascript. The number
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of the programming languages that compile to Javascript is increasing rapidly. Javascript
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as a language [sucks](https://whydoesitsuck.com/why-does-javascript-suck/) but as platform
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it is amazing. Lots of money and engineering afford has been spent on improving Javascript engines.
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As a result Javascript is a crappy language with well engineered engines such as
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[V8](https://v8.dev/).
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Creating a language base on Javascript platform means that I have to be involved with the whole
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transpiling scenario and deal with the fact that this new language can be used on different
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browsers or on the backend. Or even on IE6 (Just kidding). I don't want to deal with all this.
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I think Javascript platform can't be a good fit for what I need. So i won't go in details about
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it
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## Python
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Python is another famous platform form creating programming languages. Many people has built
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programming languages on top of Python (Checkout [Lispy](http://norvig.com/lispy.html) if you're
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a Python fan). Python is super popular these days and you'll see it everywhere. Creating a language
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on top of Python (just like Javascript) gives me access to a rich ecosystem with huge number of
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libraries and a robust ecosystem.
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But as I mentioned in the [rational](/programming/rational-and-a-name/) I want support for built-in
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concurrency and parallelism. Python isn't even good when it comes to parallelism and concurrency.
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I'm using python for more that 10 years now and I'm very familiar with it. I know about all the
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effort to create useful concurrency and parallelism such as asyncIO. But the fact is Python
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is not designed for this job. **GIL** is a huge problem in Python that literally prevents
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us from Running two piece of code in parallel in two kernel space thread. It is a problem
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for me. If you can't do a decent concurrency and parallel execution you have no chance
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against modern languages like Clojure, Go, Elixir and others. Python is fine now despite
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of its problems because it is good at other stuff and people accepted it for what it is.
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Python is out there for about 25 years now and it has established a big community. If
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Guido van Rossum created Python a year ago, I'm pretty sure that it would've fail because
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it can't compete with modern languages. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to trash Python.
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It is great and it has many good qualities but a good Concurrency and parallel execution model
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ain't one of them.
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## BEAM
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Erlang ecosystem is amazing, Robust and well tested. I have read a lot about it and when
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ever I'm studying anything around computer science that can be related to Erlang, I ask
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myself "How is Erlang doing it?". Erlang ecosystem truly had a huge impact on the world
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today.
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The problem with Erlang ecosystem for me is that I always read about it and my knowledge
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around it is only theoretical. Building a language on top a platform needs a good level
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of practical experience on the platform as well which I don't have that. So it's obvious
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that I have to pass.
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## JVM
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As much as I dislike Java (Mostly because of the syntax and the fact that it is an object
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oriented language), I like JVM a lot.
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## One VM to rule them all
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