[deleting a post by @guitarvydas and reposting with added a description — I want to discourage posting naked URLs or relying on the link preview, and encourage adding explicit context] New blog post: The Hidden Gem in S/SL: Why Dataless Languages Matter Excerpt:

In this article, I want to discuss my main inspiration from S/SL—a 1970s compiler construction language that most programmers have never heard of, but which demonstrates something fundamental about separating architectural thinking from implementation details.

What is S/SL?

S/SL stands for Syntax/Semantic Language. It was designed for writing compilers—specifically the parts that parse input, analyze semantics, and generate code.

Here’s what makes it unusual: S/SL has no data definitions. You can’t declare integers, strings, arrays, or records.

Never heard of S/SL! But I like the idea. And I agree with the principle of separating concerns at the notation level. Not only does it prevent mixing concerns, it also makes things clearer for readers.

That is a very cool idea. It's interesting that HTML started out pretty much like that - with structure, style & behavior separated into different layers (HTML, CSS & JS) but eventually the need for modularity led us to React. It's interesting to think how programming could work if this was the case. Great article.