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ktallett • 08/19/2026 • 2 replies • view on HN

I am curious why develop a new language instead of building a library for an existing language. What are the benefits as I didn't see this in the paper? Can it interact with other languages?


Replies

flossly • 08/19/2026

I understood this language like being something similar to assembly.

Many compiled languages can compile down to assembly and which can be used to debug/optimize/understand the compilation process.

Assembly is so close to the underlying hardware that it's not very practical for us humans to write software with it.

> Can it interact with other languages?

I'd say this is probably similar to the story with assembly. Assembly cannot interop with C. But C can be compiled down to assembly (not sure that counts as "interact" to you).

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black_knight • 08/19/2026

The first sentence of the abstract gives a motivation: "λλ uses a linear type system to encode the physical constraints of optics, rejecting unrealizable programs at compile time."

The fact that it its own language does not preclude using it within the context of a different language. You can embed a domain specific language into a general purpose one.

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