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A Programming Language System to Unleash the Potentials of Types and Templates

ATS/Postiats (or ATS2/Postiats) is the name for the current compiler ofATS2, the successor of ATS (or ATS1).

The actual implementation of ATS/Postiats started in March, 2011, andit took about two and one-half years to reach the first release of ATS2 atthe beginning of September, 2013. As of now, the code base for the compilerof ATS2 consists of 150,000+ lines of code (LOC), which are nearly allwritten in ATS1.

When compared to ATS1, the single most important new feature is thetemplate system of ATS2. This is a feature that could potentially changethe way a programmer writes his or her code. One can certainly feel thatthis is a very powerful feature (a bit like feeling that OOP is a verypowerful feature). However, how this feature should be properly andeffectively 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 seehttp://www.ats-lang.org/Downloads.html 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 source for Libraries (ATSLIB/{prelude,libc,libats}):GPLv3.
• The object code for Libraries (ATSLIB/{prelude,libc,libats}):LGPLv2.1.
• As a special exception, if you link the object code for Libraries with other filesto create an executable, then the linking does not by itself cause the executable tobe covered by LGPLv2.1. However, this exception does not invalidate any other reasonsthat might result in the executable being covered by LGPLv2.1.
• There is a separate release under the BSD license for the C header files of theLibraries, which one can freely insert into the C code generated from ATS source code.