Microsoft recently released a new programming language Bosque. It was recently released as an open-source language and claims to usher in the second golden age of developments in developer tools. It expects to bring about a stark revolution in programming languages since Structured programming and Abstract Data Types changed the landscape of the industry in the 1970s. Here is what the team behind Bosque had to say about their work —
We believe that, just as structured programming did years ago, this regularised programming model will lead to massively improved developer productivity, increased software quality, and enable a second golden age of developments in compilers and developer tooling.
The language definitely brings forth some fresh ideas and since its being backed by Microsoft, it may gain traction in the coming years. So let’s take a keen look at Bosque, it’s core beliefs and philosophy and what it has to offer to developers.
The Rise of Bosque
The author of Bosque, Mark Marron, introduced a new programming model called Regularised Programming. It is inspired by the syntax and types of TypeScript and the semantics of ML and Node/JavaScript. It is typed and functional in nature. The GitHub repo for Bosque was created on 3rd of Mar, 2019, and it was published on Microsoft website on 15th of April, 2019.
It is touted to build upon the successes of structured programming and abstract data types by simplifying existing programming models into a regularised form that would eliminate major sources of errors, simplify code understanding and modification, and convert many automated reasoning tasks over code into trivial propositions.
Compilation and Support
There is currently limited support and incomplete documentation for the language ( well it released just a week ago 🤓 ). Visual Studio support is currently limited to syntax and brace highlighting. You need node installed to be able to work on Bosque currently. The code compiles down to TypeScript which further compiles down to JavaScript.
Since its heavily derived from TypeScript and JavaScript, it’ll be fairly easy for the large community of TypeScript and JavaScript to adopt the syntax and…
