Alternative /hipster/ syntaxes for D

[simendsjo]

On Thu, 29 Mar 2012 11:47:54 +0200, ezdiy <eezdiy at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hello,
>
> D syntax being C-ish one is great for oldschool class of programmers  
> coming C/C++/Java/C# backgrounds, and although it's quite conscise one  
> compared to, eg. javas, it's still much on the overly verbose side for  
> some people (ie. at least for me :)
>
> The question is, how one would go around to successfully implement an  
> alternative modern syntax to "fix" this. Are there some attempts out  
> there?
>
> I'm talking among the lines of translators for popular languages such as  
> Lua (http://moonscript.org/) or Javascript (http://coffeescript.org/).  
> For statically typed example, take a look at http://live.gnome.org/Genie  
> for Vala.
>
> My idea is something like: try to keep as much of original D grammar as  
> possible, but add a lot of syntactic sugar, f.e.:
>
> - strip perceived "bloat" - by default, all variables auto, only basics  
> of OO (everything virtual and public..) exposed etc...
> - python's indentation blocks, instead of {}
> - line decorators, such as: a = b if c
> - multiple return values (either hack the compiler to have em, or add *a  
> lot* of boilerplate to the translator to use tuples)
> - your ideas?
>
> Another issue is how to go around implementation. My bet is to start  
> with some already existing 1:1 D translator which has an actual AST  
> state (is there something like that?) and then try to retrofit it with  
> as much of the hipster stuff until things start to get overly ambiguous  
> :)

http://delight.sourceforge.net/