Back in 1996, I first encountered Java Virtual Machine while still in collage. And immediately fell in love. But worse - I got obsessed with it. Obsessed with this crazy idea of writing new languages that targeted JVM. 20 Years later that obsession secretly continues ...
Fortran Compiler For Java Virtual Machine
To complete my Computer Engineering degree, we had to submit a group project at the end of the final year. I was able convince my awesome and insanely talented friends to take that as our project.
- We chose fortran because lots of literature available on Fortran
- We contacted Center for Development of Advance Computing (CDAC), and they indicated interest in porting their scientific simulations in Fortran to our JVM.
- Sun JVM team shared their JVM specs with us. (I just realized I actually work for the same company now !!!)
What we delivered
- Assembler for JVM
- Fortran compiler that outputs in our assembly language
- Java based IDE for editing and building fortran code.
The BIG DREAM - JVM as a target for writing new languages
Obviously back in those days as a young collage student, my intention was to conquer the world! But by developing new and interesting higher order languages ...
Paradigm Shift I really wanted was ...LINQ !
The language I really wanted us to implement had native SQL syntax ...here is what my handwritten version of seminar says ...
Where are we now 20 years later?
Top Languages running on JVM
- Scala
- Groovy
- Jython
- JRuby
Lambda and Streams
- Java now supports lambda and stream processing
Where to next ?
It looks like world is still warming up to the notion of targeting languages to JVM and getting to know lambdas.
And I feel like my dream is still alive and a driving force for me...
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