Link: A 30-minute Introduction to Rust (Tutorial)

Rust logo

http://doc.rust-lang.org/master/intro.html

From the tutorial:

Rust is a systems programming language that combines strong compile-time correctness guarantees with fast performance. It improves upon the ideas of other systems languages like C++ by providing guaranteed memory safety (no crashes, no data races) and complete control over the lifecycle of memory. Strong memory guarantees make writing correct concurrent Rust code easier than in other languages. This tutorial will give you an idea of what Rust is like in about thirty minutes. It expects that you’re at least vaguely familiar with a previous ‘curly brace’ language, but does not require prior experience with systems programming. The concepts are more important than the syntax, so don’t worry if you don’t get every last detail: the tutorial can help you out with that later.

Link to the Rust programming language home page.

Overtone: Open source live-coding environment & audio collaboration platform written in Clojure

Overtone website masthead

According to the website, Overtone is a “live-coding environment and audio collaboration platform that’s free for everyone to download, hack on and make crazy-cool sounds either individually or in groups.” It is “a musical programming library written in Clojure which uses the SuperCollider audio engine and synthesis server under the covers.”

For a taste of what kind of sounds can be made in Overtone, check out this band’s website. Overtone also supports integration with Quil and Shadertone to integrate synchronized visuals with Overtone audio.

Hugo: Static Site Generator written in Go

Hugo masthead from website

I like simplicity, and nothing says simple like a plain, old, static HTML website. Static websites have some real advantages: they are generally pretty secure, they play nice with whatever source control system you use, and they are fast. A static site generator gives you those advantages plus some niceties like templating and asset reuse.

One of the most interesting things about Hugo is that since it runs on the Go language runtime, you can drop the package on your system of choice and go.

From the website:

Hugo doesn’t depend on administrative privileges, databases, runtimes, interpreters or external libraries. Sites built with Hugo can be deployed
on S3, Github Pages, Dropbox or any web host.

Organize your content however you want with any URL structure. Declare your own content types. Define your own meta data in YAML, TOML or JSON.
Use indexes to group your content however you want.

The next time I build a static site, I’ll definitely give Hugo a look. I found out about this tool from Web Appers.

Dart: Google-backed programming language built to address issues in JavaScript

Dart Logo

I have to admit that this project pushes all of the right buttons for me. It looks like a fully structured language. It allows the use of types which opens the door for good tool support. It compiles down to JavaScript, so it will run in any browser. It can run on the server. Inheritance, generitc, isolates, annotations… I’m looking forward to building something in Dart.

From Wikipedia:

Dart is an open-source Web programming language developed by Google.

The goal of Dart is “ultimately to replace JavaScript as the lingua franca of web development on the open web platform”, but Dart currently relies
exclusively on its cross-compilation to JavaScript feature in order to run in mainstream browsers. Dart is intended to address issues with
JavaScript that Google engineers felt could not be solved by evolving the language, while offering better performance. Google works on Dart to help
it build more complex, full-featured client-side Web applications.
Dart is a class-based, single inheritance, object-oriented language with C-style syntax. It supports interfaces, abstract classes, reified
generics, and optional typing. Static type annotations do not affect the runtime semantics of the code. Instead, the type annotations can provide
documentation for tools like static checkers and dynamic run time checks.

From the Dart: Up and Running book on the Dart website:

Dart is easy to learn. A wide range of developers can learn Dart quickly. It’s an object-oriented language with classes, single inheritance,
lexical scope, top-level functions, and a familiar syntax. Most developers are up and running with Dart in just a few hours.

Dart compiles to JavaScript. Dart has been designed from the start to compile to JavaScript, so that Dart apps can run across the entire
modern web. Every feature considered for the language must somehow be translated to performant and logical JavaScript before it is added. Dart
draws a line in the sand and doesn’t support older, legacy browsers.

Dart runs in the client and on the server. The Dart virtual machine (VM) can be integrated into a web browser, but it can also run standalone
on the command line. With built-in library support for files, directories, sockets, and even web servers, you can use Dart for full end-to-end
apps.

Dart comes with a lightweight editor. You can use Dart Editor to write, launch, and debug Dart apps. The editor can help you with code
completion, detecting potential bugs, debugging both command-line and web apps, and even refactoring. Dart Editor isn’t required for writing
Dart; it’s just a tool that can help you write better code faster.

Dart supports types, without requiring them. You can omit types when you want to move very quickly, aren’t sure what structure to take, or
simply want to express something you can’t with the type system. You can add types as your program matures, the structure becomes more evident,
and more developers join the project. Dart’s optional types are static type annotations that act as documentation, clearly expressing your
intent. Using types means that fewer comments are required to document the code, and tools can give better warnings and error messages.

Dart scales from small scripts to large, complex apps. Web development is very much an iterative process. With the reload button acting as
your compiler, building the seed of a web app is often a fun experience of writing a few functions just to experiment. As the idea grows, you can
add more code and structure. Thanks to Dart’s support for top-level functions, optional types, classes, and libraries, your Dart programs can
start small and grow over time. Tools such as Dart Editor help you refactor and navigate your code as it evolves.

Dart has a wide array of built-in libraries. The core library supports built-in types and other fundamental features such as collections,
dates, and regular expressions. Web apps can use the HTML library—think DOM programming, but optimized for Dart. Command-line apps can use the
I/O library to work with files, directories, sockets, and servers. Other libraries include URI, UTF, Crypto, Math, and Unit test.

Dart supports safe, simple concurrency with isolates. Traditional shared-memory threads are difficult to debug and can lead to deadlocks.
Dart’s isolates, inspired by Erlang, provide an easier to understand model for running isolated, but concurrent, portions of your code. Spawning
new isolates is cheap and fast, and no state is shared.

Dart supports code sharing. Traditional web programming workflows can’t integrate third-party libraries from arbitrary sources or frameworks.
With the Dart package manager (pub) and language features such as libraries, you can easily discover, install, and integrate code from across the
web and enterprise.

Dart is open source. Dart was born for the web, and it’s available under a BSD-style license. You can find the project’s issue tracker and
source repository online. Maybe you’ll submit the next patch?

Elixir: functional language built on the Erlang VM

Elixir logo

From the Elixir website (via Tim Bray’s blog) :

Elixir is a functional, meta-programming aware language built on top of the
Erlang VM. It is a dynamic language with flexible syntax and macro support that
leverages Erlang’s abilities to build concurrent, distributed and fault-tolerant
applications with hot code upgrades.

Elixir also provides first-class support for pattern matching, polymorphism via
protocols (similar to Clojure’s), aliases and associative data structures
(usually known as dicts or hashes in other programming languages).

Finally, Elixir and Erlang share the same bytecode and data types. This means
you can invoke Erlang code from Elixir (and vice-versa) without any conversion
or performance hit. This allows a developer to mix the expressiveness of Elixir
with the robustness and performance of Erlang.