New Cobra

I thought January's release of Cobra would be a 0.0.1 increment, but the progress was substantial enough to call it "0.7". See for yourself in the release notes and get yourself a copy!

In other news:

I added a section that I had forgotten in the Comparison to Python about how Cobra defaults to accurate arithmetic. Adding 0.1 to itself 10 times does not equal 0.999999...

There is a new sample that implements a FORTH interpreter. It needs a lot more work, but it's a good start with support for word definitions.

In less than 10 hours I fly out to Washington for Lang.NET 2008. I'm looking forward to geeking out about languages, compilers, interpreters and more. But I'm disappointed that the Spec# team won't be presenting as they did last time. Cobra also does contracts and I hope to integrate with their static analysis tool at some point.

Getting back to the Cobra language and compiler, I fell shy of the necessary clean up to open the source code, but I'm getting close. So when I get back the plans are:

• Open the source code some time in February. (MIT license)


• Install Trac for issue tracking and wiki.


• Set up discussion forums.


• Get new blogging software?

And then it's on to the next version!

News

The new domain for Cobra is http://cobra-language.com/ which is easier to verbalize in a conversation ("cobra language dot com") and easier to read with the dash. The old domain, cobralang.com, suffered in both areas. Note that whether you use a dash or not, or type ".com" or ".org", doesn't matter. All those combinations, as well as the old domain, will forward to http://cobra-language.com/.

There will be a new release later this week with various fixes, refinements and additions.

Then next week I'll be at the Lang.NET 2008 Symposium.

In February, I'll open source Cobra and add Trac for issue tracking, wiki and Subversion browsing.

At some point, hopefully in February again, I'll add online discussion forums.

New Cobra!

Cobra 0.6 was released on Dec 31. Release Notes, Downloads

And there is some Cobra discussion on the kplug-lpsg mailing list.

Making Progresss

It's been a month since my last post, so it's time for an update. I've continued to make progress, most of which is bug fixing. I've also improved several error messages to read more clearly. There are 25 new test programs for a total of 478.

The hardest problems to fix always involve generics. The good news is that after fixing problems with generics, everything else is a cakewalk.

(Note: "CLI" stands for "Common Language Infrastructure" and I reference it instead of ".NET" because Cobra also runs on Novell Mono.)

I've also added a new -embed-run-time option so that you can deliver a CLI .DLL to C#, VB and other CLI users without requiring that they have a Cobra.Lang.dll on their system. Extreme compatibility with C# and VB is one of Cobra's goal. The idea is that you should be able to vend Cobra libraries back out to other CLI users both technically and practically.

I expect to release 0.6 before the New Year.

And I'll be at the 2008 Lang.NET Symposium in late January.

Where's Cobra?

The next version of Cobra is still on my hard drive because I'm obsessed with fixing warts and bugs in it. What I'm doing is making the next release more practical for you to sink your teeth into and offer meaningful feedback. (Of course, I make offsite backups to avoid catastrophe!)

The release notes, which I write concurrent to the work, are fairly long and this looks like it will be the largest release yet. Test cases are up to 454 and rising.

I don't have an ETA, but it will be at least two more weeks and possibly longer.

Also, Cobra will be going open source in the future with either the MIT or BSD license. The compiler itself is written in Cobra and much of the source is in an older coding style from when Cobra was less mature so I'll be cleaning that up first. I expect to open the source no later than release 0.7, but hopefully earlier as an independent event.

In non-Cobra news, I've become one of "The Three Hundred". $85/month is a pretty cheap price for longevity!

Movie Robot or Programming Language?

I scored 14 out of 15 on the Movie Robot or Programming Language? quiz. Should I be embarrassed or proud?

(New Cobra release coming next week...)

Full-Time

I've been part-time on Cobra this whole time... until now. Starting this week, I am full-time on Cobra. This means more releases, more docs and more thorough testing.

There is still a lot of work to do on the language, but as it gets closer to maturity, I'll branch out into a mailing list, a wiki and all that good stuff.

Implementing the compiler in Cobra (by using "snapshots" of the compiler at stable points) continues to pay huge dividends. One type of dividend is benefiting from Cobra's features (contracts, unit tests, the upcoming exception report, etc.). Another is finding bugs quickly because the whole time I'm implementing Cobra, I'm hammering Cobra.

The next release will be out by month's end.