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A Programming Language System to Unleash the Potentials of Typesand Templates

ATS/Postiats (or ATS2/Postiats) is the name for the current compilerof ATS2, the successor of ATS (or ATS1).

The actual implementation of ATS/Postiats started in the March of2011, and it took about two and one-half years to reach the firstrelease of ATS2 at the beginning of September, 2013. As of now, thecode base for the compiler of ATS2 consists of 180,000+ lines of code(LOC), which are nearly all written in ATS1.

When compared to ATS1, the single most important new feature is thetemplate system of ATS2. This is a feature that could potentiallychange the way a programmer writes his or her code. One can certainlyfeel that this is a very powerful feature (a bit like feeling that OOPis a very powerful feature). However, how this feature should be properlyand effectively used in practice needs a lot more investigation.

Another thing about ATS2 is that it is a lot leaner than ATS. One can makegood use of ATS2 without any need for compiled library (libatslib.a). Also,GC support in ATS1 is now removed; if needed, third-party GC (e.g.,Bohem-GC) can be readily employed.

• Ubuntu
• Cygwin

Please seehttps://ats-lang.sourceforge.net/DOWNLOAD/ forinstructions.

Note that the code in this github directory is primarily meant for peoplewho would like to help develop ATS2. For someone who just wants to programin ATS2, please install the current release of ATS2, which can be found atthe following site:https://sourceforge.net/projects/ats2-lang/.There are also pre-compiled debian packages for ATS2 available on-line.

The compiler of ATS2 is nearly all implemented in ATS1, which is availableathttp://sourceforge.net/projects/ats-lang/.

ATS-users are encouraged to share what they have learned on theATS2 wiki, which currentlycontains over 45 articles with content. A list of article stubs ismaintained atTODO.

• The Compiler (ATS/Postiats):GPLv3
• The ATS source for the Libraries (ATSLIB/{prelude,libats}):LGPLv3.
• As a special exception, any C code generated by the Compiler based on the Librariessource is not considered by default to be licensed under GPLv3/LGPLv3. If you use suchC code together with other code to create an executable, then the C code by itself doesnot cause the executable to be covered by GPLv3/LGPLv3. However, there may be reasonsunrelated to using ATS that can result in the executable being covered by GPLv3/LGPLv3.
• The contributed portion (ATS/Postiats/contrib) is released under the MIT license.
• There is also a release under the MIT license for the C header files of the Libraries,which one can, for instance, freely insert into C code generated from ATS source code.