BosqueLanguage

Fun feature now usable in Bosque -- ref parameters and variables. They allow simple "locally stateful" style programming while de-sugaring to immutable code. Instead of manually threading state you can simply "ref" it through and let the compiler handle the book-keeping:

iirc, the keynote at SPLASH 24 covered just such an example — Unicode processing implemented in Dafny and compiled to Java youtube.com/watch?v=X3m5QOb_…

Since I am seeing many posts on the future of programming with AI. I figured I might share an invited talk I gave on the topic in 2023 -- youtu.be/Ei-QlcGYWgs?si=EEe0… (abstract dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/36227…). One interesting item I noticed was a consensus for spec-driven development to validate AI generated implementations. But where do the specs come from? How are the expressed? Where are they integrated into the PL and build/workflow process? Making specs a first-class and natural part of a PL is a critical challenge here.

A lot more detail on these thoughts in two links: dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3… youtu.be/Ei-QlcGYWgs?si=Sv3C… But I think AI coding is actually a great opportunity for PL development -- no legacy codebase issues and massive opportunities to improve systems via better language design!