One technique that makes for a powerful dynamic or meta-language is blurring the distinction between what are "primitives" (built-in operations) and libraries (add-on-able functions, classes, and APIs).
LispLanguage and SmalltalkLanguage are known for this more or less. Some questions:
- What other languages fall into this category, fully or partially?
- ForthLanguage is perhaps the quintessential example of this concept, where all Forth operations (aka "words") are library operators and vice versa.
- HaskellLanguage allows you to define your own operators, and some operators are defined in the Prelude (which is the standard base library).
- RubyLanguage is known for nearly arbitrary manipulation of objects, be they built-ins, standard library, or user-defined.
- How far can this concept be taken?
- Are there "social" problems with being too flexible? (LispIsTooPowerful)
- Possibly. Whether or not the cost for a developer to learn and maintain (or define) what is essentially a sublanguage defined by library-defined constructs is greater or less than that for an "ordinary" function/class library -- and to what degree this is a general principle, or library-specific or language-specific or developer-specific -- is a matter of debate and/or research.
If the distinction is blurred (LibraryAndPrimitivesBlurring) this gives developers less chance to specialize - and in a recognizable way so.
Forces:
- A human can only learn a master only so much.
- A known and well-defined set of domains (each of a size that can be mastered) allows for coordination of experts.
AntiPattern:
TooPowerfulForItsOwnGood
So a clear separation between library and primitive is one means to ensure defined domains. There may be other differentiations.
This seems to be an instance of AlternateHardAndSoftLayers.
CategoryMetaprogramming
Library And Primitives Blurring