Why Now is the BEST Time to Create a New Programming Language

LLMs as a Primer for New Languages

• 💡 Large Language Models (LLMs) can act as a primer for new programming languages, helping users understand their syntax and style.
• ⚠️ While LLMs might not have extensive data on niche languages like Rock, they can often infer correct syntax by drawing parallels to similar functional languages like Elm or Haskell.
• 🧩 Providing LLMs with a dedicated markdown document or "primer" can significantly improve their understanding and code generation capabilities for a specific language.

Overcoming the "Ecosystem Problem"

• 🚀 Historically, new programming languages faced adoption hurdles due to a lack of established ecosystems, a challenge LLMs can now help overcome.
• 🛠️ LLMs can significantly accelerate the bootstrapping of a new language's ecosystem by assisting in porting existing libraries and their tests.
• 🔑 This process, which used to be painstaking and error-prone, can now be streamlined, allowing developers to review and integrate functionalities much faster.

Accelerating Language Adoption with LLMs

• ⚡ The traditional ramp-up period for learning a new language, often involving extensive documentation searches, is significantly reduced with LLM assistance.
• 💬 Developers can simply describe the functionality they need, and LLMs can generate the code, making the learning curve less steep and more intuitive.
• 🎯 This improved user experience, especially for niche or newer languages, can make it easier than ever for them to gain traction and adoption.

Synthesizing Code with LLMs

• 🧠 When using LLMs to generate code, developers can now choose to synthesize code in languages with desirable properties, like pure functions, rather than defaulting to more established but potentially less ideal languages.
• 📈 The ability to easily generate code in a new language, coupled with LLM assistance in porting libraries, suggests that breaking out as a new programming language might be more feasible now than ever before.