Coding Cool with Fan!

The most exciting new programming language I have seen in quite some time is the new Fan language. I recommend reading Why Fan and taking the Tour to have get a quick grasp of what Fan offers.  Then Download Fan and StartHere!

 Why am I so enthusiastic about Fan?  It's Object Oriented, but also supports functions as first class objects.  That makes Fan one of the new "Object-Functional" languages (see Scala for another example, although I am finding Scala a bit overly-complex for my taste). Fan is easily approachable from a C/C++/C#, Java, Python, Ruby or Smalltalk background.

 Fan interoperates on the Java VM, the .NET Framework's CLR, and also supports compiling JavaScript for use in browsers.  Fan's design should make it portable to Parrot and other run-time targets in future. 

More than anything else, though, I like Fan's clean, and I must say rather beautiful, design.  Look at this quote about the development team's approach to the Fan API's:  "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder - but we are obsessed with making the Fan APIs beautiful."   Brian and Andy Frank, Fan's two main developers, are quick to state that Fan is a practical, rather than academic language.  However, I assure you a *lot* of thought and deep knowledge about the evolution of programming languages has gone into Fan's design.  I consider Fan quite elegant and am very much enjoying cooling my code with Fan!

To help spread the Fan meme, I have started FanFans, a LinkedIn Group for those who want to "fan the Fan!"  If you're on LinkedIn, search for "FanFans" or "Fan language" and join the group!

 So, let's all Fan out and spread some cool code!

 

 

 

1 Comment

  • Nice . Anybody who have gone through Fan's docs
    wiil agree with you that it is a beatiful language.

    A basic tutorial is needed to attract new users.
    Code comparison with any of the languages mentioned in your blog will increase fan's popularity .

    Thanks

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