oldest jvm "scripting" language?

[Per Bothner]

I have a couple of claims I like to make, but to
keep me honest I'd like to know if I'm wrong about:

- Kawa is the oldest currently-active functional language on the JVM.
(Kawa dates back to 1996.)

- Kawa is the oldest currently-active "scripting language" on the JVM.
(For some definition of "scripting language"!)

- Kawa is the language (active or not) with the oldest compiler for
the JVM, not counting Java or Java dialects. By "compiler" I
primarily compilation directly to JVM bytescodes (.class files or
ClassLoader.defineClass), though I'm also curious about
languages that compiled to Java source code.
(Kawa compiled to JVM bytecodes in 1996.)

Anyone know of counter-examples?
--
--Per Bothner
p...@bothner.com http://per.bothner.com/

[Patric Bechtel]

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Hi,

I think NetRexx is about the same age - June '96 AFAIR (I would have to look it up, maybe it's
even older...). Currently on version 3.01RC and active. But it compiles to Java source code, not
directly to bytecode; but it can hide that fact quite well as the 'normal' user just invokes nrc
and it does the java compile on its own. You *can* split that process for javadoc et al, though.

cu, Patric

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[John Cowan]

On Sun, Aug 19, 2012 at 7:30 PM, Patric Bechtel
<patric....@gmail.com> wrote:

> I think NetRexx is about the same age - June '96 AFAIR

Wikipedia says version 0.50 was released in April '96. It
steam-engines when it comes steam-engine time, as Uncle Al says.

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[Jim White]

I started using Kawa in 1996 and spent ten years telling folks it is the greatest thing for the JVM nobody had heard of.  ;-)

It probably doesn't count as a "scripting" language but I think Fujitsu NetCOBOL was one of the earliest non-Java languages that compiled to JVM bytecode that I recall.  I think it was announced by (concurrently with?) the Java 1.0 release in January.  I never used it so I don't know when it was actually available.  I don't see any clear documents that say what the release date was, but the copyrights do date from 1996.

https://www.google.com/search?q=cobol+jvm+fujitsu+1996

Similarly for Ada.  This article is timestamped May 1996:  

http://www.adahome.com/Tutorials/Lovelace/java.htm

In any case, Kawa gets my strong endorsement as oldest JVM bytecode compiled language with a REPL.  I don't even recall what the second JVM language (bytecode compiled or not) with a REPL that I encountered was (LISP being so obviously the right choice anyhow! ;-).

Jim

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[Mark Evenson]

On 9/1/12 4:40 AM, Jim White wrote:
> I started using Kawa in 1996 and spent ten years telling folks it is the
> greatest thing for the JVM nobody had heard of. ;-)
>
> It probably doesn't count as a "scripting" language but I think Fujitsu
> NetCOBOL was one of the earliest non-Java languages that compiled to JVM
> bytecode that I recall. I think it was announced by (concurrently
> with?) the Java 1.0 release in January. I never used it so I don't know
> when it was actually available. I don't see any clear documents that
> say what the release date was, but the copyrights do date from 1996.
>
> https://www.google.com/search?q=cobol+jvm+fujitsu+1996
>
> Similarly for Ada. This article is timestamped May 1996:
>
> http://www.adahome.com/Tutorials/Lovelace/java.htm
>
> In any case, Kawa gets my strong endorsement as oldest JVM bytecode
> compiled language with a REPL. I don't even recall what the second JVM
> language (bytecode compiled or not) with a REPL that I encountered was
> (LISP being so obviously the right choice anyhow! ;-).

Kawa was always first and impressive, shortly available after the first
public, outside-of-SUNW (java-1.0(alpha/beta)2) release in Spring 1995.

For the record on other Lisp REPLs with compilers department, the J
editor started with a sexp interpreter with its release in 1997(?) By
2003, enough code was public to be a plausible Common Lisp interpreter
with a compiler to bytecode for most cases. It took until [October 2011
to become a conforming ANSI implementation][1].

[j]: http://armedbear-j.sourceforge.net/
[1]: http://blip.tv/eclm/eclm-2011-erik-h%C3%BClsman-abcl-1-0-5771267

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