Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

So, there's something about that that is true, but we weren't aiming for this per se.

We wanted to make the idea of a programming world as an OS manifest, so Slate images and object networks are like a file system image. The most straightforward way for us to get into that was dynamic with optional typing.

The idea at some point was to have staged meta-programming (like we did to build the VM out of Slate) that was typed, so that the static existed within the dynamic but in a more obvious way than "sure, my Haskell universe exists on a nasty filesystem".

We tried.



I guess I should say that we built a type system in Slate using objects and multimethods; it was used for metaprogramming and self-hosting.

Obviously not ideal, but we leaned in the direction we hoped others would see. I don't think enough people saw what we were doing beyond the front page news blurbs. Slate has a lot of good code in it.




Consider applying for YC's Fall 2025 batch! Applications are open till Aug 4

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: