Re: What programming languages are simply abstractions on top of another programming language?

On 2022-06-18, Roger L Costello <costello@mitre.org> wrote:
> Hi Folks,
>
> I am reading "Software Tools" by Kernighan and Plauger. One of the things that
> I've learned is that Ratfor is a simple abstraction on top of Fortran. For
> example, Ratfor provides a while loop. The while loop can be mechanically
> converted to Fortran if-then and goto statements. Really cool!
>
> That got me to wondering, "What other programming languages are simply
> abstractions on top of an existing programming language?"


In the Ratfor spirit, in April 2022, I introduced a new one: cppawk.


https://www.kylheku.com/cgit/cppawk/about/


Using the GNU C preprocessor, with C99 semantics, I managed to build,
for instance, a loop macro that supports multiple clauses that
combine for parallel or nested (cross product) iteration.


Not only are there some userful predefined clauses, but they
are user-definable.


Even the Common Lisp LOOP macro deosn't have user-definable clauses.
I made it possible in five #define statements.


"LOL"


:)


There is a "Mock Lisp" data abstraction layer as well: cons cells
are represented and such. Lists can be passed around and mapped
over (if you have GNU Awk, which has indirect functions).


cppawk provides a case statement which "compiles" either to
a GNU Awk switch (nonstandard extension) or else portable
constructs that work in other Awks.


> /Roger
> [The infamous m4 macrogenerator is used to build what are in effect new
> languages like the sendmail configuration and GNU Autoconf. -John]


GNU m4 underlies the Bison implementation: it's what glues together
the parser skeleton templates with the grammar tables and whatnot
to produce the output.


--
TXR Programming Language: http://nongnu.org/txr
Cygnal: Cygwin Native Application Library: http://kylheku.com/cygnal

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