I'm actually surprised there is no specification. It's how I thought languages were written: spec first, implementation later. Do RFCs serve this purpose?

Anti Commercial-AI license

[–] BatmanAoD@programming.dev 5 points 16 hours ago

That's actually not how any language has ever been written, though it's easy to get that impression from how much the C and C++ communities emphasize their formal specifications.

But in fact, both languages were in production use for over a decade before they had a formal spec. And languages with formal specifications are actually a tiny minority of programming languages.

[–] snaggen@programming.dev 11 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

That requires a complete picture and all possible use cases from the start. Initially when a language is new and hardly used there are much to benefit from flexibility and trying new concepts. Then as the language matures, a more formal process is needed to ensure stability. There is a reason these discussions comes now, since rust is in a very stable phase.

[–] taladar@sh.itjust.works 3 points 2 days ago

There might also just not be a single spec because the information is spread out over RFCs instead of being collected in a central location.

[–] copacetic@discuss.tchncs.de 7 points 2 days ago

Welcome to the real world. /s