Appeal for Shen (successor to Qi II)

Shen is a programming language designed to replace Qi II over the next two years. For those of you not in the know, Qi is a language implemented on top of Common Lisp which uses sequent calculus to provide a level of type security whose scope exceeds that of conventional functional languages. Qi combines this with an environment that gives access to pattern-directed functional programming, compiler-compiler technology and logic programming via Prolog.

Qi II is written in Common Lisp, but Shen is intended to run, not just under Common Lisp, but under many platforms including Javascript, Common Lisp, Scheme, and NewLisp amongst others. Central to this project is the definition of a small, powerful and highly efficient Lisp kernel called K Lambda. In September 2010, Carl Shapiro and I agreed an instruction set defining K Lambda and capable of implementing the whole of Shen. In September of 2010, I successfully ran a executable version of Shen under CLisp using an instruction set of 50 system functions. This should make Shen much easier to port than Qi II.

Shen will appear under a liberal license giving all users power to develop commercial applications. However funding is becoming a critical issue.

Unlike ML, Haskell and Prolog, Qi and Shen are not nurtured through public funding. Nor do I depend on the largesse of a corporation. This fact has allowed Qi to develop without institutional or corporate interference, and it has travelled a long way considering the lack of funding. But we have arrived at a point in the project where I cannot carry Shen financially as I carried Qi for many years. Without capital it is difficult to carry this project through to a successful conclusion and to keep it going.

The figures involved are not large, because there is one person involved, myself, who is driving much of the work. However, even though I hope to be working with others in developing an open source library and the work of porting has volunteers lined up, still coordinating and mentoring discussion will take a lot of my time. Hence for the first time I am launching an appeal for people to step forward and pledge a small monthly amount to the project.

You can read the details of the work in progress, the potential future and contribute to the appeal here

www.lambdassociates.org/Shen/appeal.htm

Since this message will be going out to several forums, it may not be possible for me to reply in depth and detail to everybody who posts here. But I do read posts when I can. I hope you will be able to contribute to this work.

Mark Tarver www.lambdassociates.org