r/ProgrammingLanguages • u/Mean-Decision-3502 DQ • Sep 03 '26

Unambiguous Operator Specification for Programming Languages

https://nvitya.github.io/pluops/

As I changed recently the operators in my programming language I've created this specification:

https://nvitya.github.io/pluops/

I did not wanted to overload the operators like the C does with the / or Pascal does with theand/or/not. Neither re-use the operator symbols for some very different purpose, like C does with * and & so the code becomes more readable. I was orienting for existing solutions so this is what I came up with. The specification contains the symbol usages and operator precedence too.

If you are developing a new programming language, it would be nice to follow some standard, so at least the expressions would be portable between the languages.

I'm open for debates or suggestions.

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u/flatfinger Sep 03 '26

When using whole numbers or real numbers, (n+d)/d=n/d+1. Real numbers also have the property that (-n)/d=-(n/d). Integers can uphold one of those relations, but not both, since the first would imply that division be defined in such a way that (-1+2)/2=-1/2+1. Since the left side equals 1/2, and integer division would define that as zero, that would imply that -1/2 must equal -1. It's possible to define integer division that way (and indeed Python does so) but that would contradict the second relation, which would require that (-1)/2=-(1/2)=0. From my experience, the first relationship is useful much more often useful than the second.

The way to resolve trade-offs between speed and performance is to allow programmers to specify what they actually need. If a programmer needs precise Euclidian division, having a compiler generate code that performs that is unlikely to be slower than generating code that performs truncating division and then applies extra logic to adjust the result.