Registration-based language abstractions

Abstract

Programming language innovation has been hindered by the difficulty of making changes to existing languages. A key source of difficulty is the tyrannical nature of existing approaches to realizing languages -- adding a new language construct means that any tool, document or programmer that works with the language must be prepared to deal with that construct. A registration-based approach makes it possible to define language constructs that are not tyrannical. They are instead transient -- the program appears to be written using the constructs only so long as a given programmer wants to see it that way. This approach may have the potential to greatly facilitate programming language innovation.