Hello guys!
I'm an old Houdini user. By “old” I mean that I was using it for years, was working as TD in movie studios and have created a ton of assets used until today in some a-class movies around the world. I'm no longer using Houdini at the daily basis (which I miss sometimes), because together with a group of brilliant developers we were creating a completely new visual programming solution. Something that would change visual programming once and for all – and I think we've managed to accomplish that task

I'm writing here because:
1) I love you as the community and I feel really strong connection with you guys.
2) We are thinking about incorporating Luna into Houdini one day, so this topic could be also relative to Houdini's development.

Some of you might recognize Luna and it's connection to Flowbox (http://www.flowbox.io). [flowbox.io] In fact I'm one of the founders of both Flowbox and NewByteOrder (http://newbyteorder.com) [newbyteorder.com] and one of the guys behind Luna's compiler. Luna is the technology powering Flowbox engine and right now I'm writing about a new Luna version, that we want to release to public in the upcoming months as an Open Source project. Luna is a new and very unique general purpose (suitable not only for computer graphics) programming language. It's unique feature is the ability to switch between code and visual representation (and vice versa) whenever you like to.

If you've got some development background, here is some technical detail for you: Luna has got a powerfull type system (with dependent types support), it's purelly functional, with easy yet powerfull syntax, light threading model, speaks seamlessly with other languages (Python, Haskell, C++) and compiles to native code or web (JavaScript).


We are just releasing the first private alpha version of Luna and we are looking for alpha testers right now. By alpha testers I mean programmers, who would love to play with Luna, help us develop it to become a really powerfull and recognizable language out there. We do not provide any usefull graphics processing libraries yet, so we're currenlty mainly looking for those of you, who would like to test a “raw” new language, give us feedback and help us with further ideas and development We've done tremendous work so far and we've got much to do yet - we hope we wll do it with you

Here is the website with all the info: http://www.luna-lang.org [luna-lang.org]
You can ask me any questions you want - here or via mail provided at the Luna's website


All the best,
Wojciech

Hi, I signed up for alpha access.

I wasnt sure from your post, but, are you targeting Luna for integration with Houdini? Is that an initial release target?

Looks pretty cool. Do you see any features that exist, planned or parallel from this topic?:

https://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_forum&Itemid=172&page=viewtopic&t=38948 [sidefx.com]

Would love to see more. Without a hardcore graphics library it will be hard to develop 3d tools IMO.

Daryl Dunlap - thanks Answering your question - no, the first release of Luna is not targetting Houdini, neither 3D processing in any way. In fact it will not contain ANY libraries, only the standard library. But we are constantly thinking about its integration into Houdini and because of that I started this topic.

pusat - your linked topic is very interesting. In fact Luna is something even more general - it ould be not only an integration of all Houdinis context, but it will also integrate all other APIs, like accessing system specific or network commands or even giving the full power (without any limitations) of Houdini's C++ SDK in the visual form.

Of course it would be hard to develop 3D tools without a hardcore graphics library, but when integraing Luna to Houdini, we could use the libraries shipped by SideFX and connect it to Houdini SDK. But, as I stated above, for now we are releasing alpha of a “raw” language, without any “usable” libraries built-in at the moment and we are looking for testers - developers, that would together with us create amazing things on top of Luna (like for example its Houdini integration!)

looks cool i don't think i can help but when you need some tester for the beta stage i will register.

mandrake0
looks cool i don't think i can help but when you need some tester for the beta stage i will register.

Thats great! You can register right now and describe in the form what you've just written - as fast as beta goes out we will notify you then!

This looks amazing. I have signed up for the alpha test.

Hi Wojciech. I like when new programming languages cames out and offers some ether completely new programming paradigm or a use classic mix of procedural, oop and functional programming. From your post, i'm not getting a key idea and goals for Luna. There are TONS of new languages with TONS of features which grows like a mushrooms. Very very few of them took their place under the sun, other dies. What so special in Luna particular for VFX? I'm asking it because you've posted this in Houdini forum. Can you provide an example of use case Houdini + Luna, which will be beneficial compare to VEX solution.
General language questions:
1. Is it managed code? Garbage collected?
2. JIT/LLVM/SIMD?
3. Why pure functional style? It's way to hard to learn! (look at Haskell/Closure popularity)

You say that Luna is general purpose language . Have no ideal of use cases… web backend? Console tools? Embedding in other host App for scripting?
How it's differ from Fabric Engine and their KL language and whats common? Is Luna aiming to be a Fabric like?
IMHO currently nothing can't compete with VEX in houdini. Ease of use, fast prototyping with visual feedback( could be better thought), PERFORMANCE.

Thanks,
Alex.

@Stalkerx777:
I'm really sorry for the late reply. I was not aware that anybody replied after my last message or I just overlooked notification.

Have you looked at our website? www.luna-lang.org? There are some really uncommon features in Luna. I'll highline some of them relted to your question:

• double representation which is completely interchangeable (if you change text, the graph updates. If you change graph, the text reflects the change).
  
• it has garbage collector that workds really fast because often it uses so called static garbage collection – we know when objects can be destructed because of purelly functional paradigm
  
• JIT + SIMD are build in. LLVM under the hood
  
• Purely functional style could be easy to use. Haskell's and Clojure's alien syntax is the barier, not the paradigm (If you dont agree, I'd love to chat more about it)
  
• built-in collaboration – a single graph can be developed by 30 people at the same time (like google-docs). It is possible because it is purely functional under the hood
  
• automatic parallelism
  
• compiles to machine code / JS
  

You can read more about the features on the Lunas website.

Regarding Houdini integration: Luna can do the same as VEX + much more. You can for example bind it to Houdini C API and use all te power given by the API and all other C libraries within the nodes. You can also access all other components within the nodes, like your disk, network etc.

Does it make sense to you?

All the best,
Wojciech