Influences from Other Languages

Frost's design draws inspiration from several programming languages, combining their strengths to create a modern systems programming language that is both powerful and elegant.

C: The Foundation

C serves as the primary influence for Frost, providing the core principles of systems programming:

• Low-level memory management

• Direct hardware access

• Efficient performance characteristics

Frost maintains C's philosophy of giving programmers fine-grained control over system resources while introducing modern safety features and syntax improvements.

Go and Zig: Resource Management

From Go and Zig, Frost adopts the defer keyword for resource management:

file: *FILE = fopen("example.txt" "r")
defer fclose(file)

% File is automatically closed at the end of the scope

This feature ensures proper cleanup of resources, reducing the risk of leaks and making code more robust and readable.

TypeScript: Module System

Frost's module system draws inspiration from TypeScript, particularly in its support for HTTP imports:

import "https://frost-lang.deno.dev/std/io.ff"

This modern approach to imports allows for easy integration of remote modules, facilitating code sharing and modular development.

Additional Influences

While not as prominent, Frost also incorporates ideas from other languages:

• Rust: Emphasis on memory safety and zero-cost abstractions

• Python: Clean, readable syntax for certain constructs

• Haskell: Inspiration for some functional programming concepts

By carefully selecting and integrating features from these languages, Frost aims to provide a unique blend of performance, safety, and expressiveness for systems programming.