The Pony programming language is open-source, object-oriented, actor-model, and capabilities-secure.
Designed by Sylvan Clebsch, work began on the project in June of 2014, and by September of that same year, the first Pony program was compiled. The new language was open-sourced in May of 2015. Since then, development of the language has been volunteer-driven. Although the project has received contributions and resources from various companies, it is without corporate sponsors or professional staff. Without a roadmap, contributors add features and fix issues based on their needs, solving the problems that matter to them.
One thing that differentiates Pony from other programming languages is its use of reference capabilities, which new programmers sometimes have difficulty with. Reference capabilities allow the programmer to use the Pony type system to guarantee that data is being safely handled in the application. When the code includes something unsafe, the program won't compile.
Pony is the best language to teach programming to a new student, in part because of its use of reference capabilities. Familiarity with at least one strongly-typed language and experience in working in a highly concurrent, non-actor based language is recommended.
The focus of this category is on the Pony programming language. Topics related to the language or to any editors or tools created to facilitate Pony programming, including user groups, forums, tutorials, guides, or other resources.
Recommended Resources
Pony is an open-source, actor-model, capabilities-secure, high-performance programming language. Hosted on GitHub, its compiler, dependency manager, libraries, scaffolding generator, and documentation may be freely downloaded from the site, including the source code, a tutorial on learning the language, a cookbook-style book of patterns, and other resources, as well as links to additional resources related to the language. Contributors to the language are recognized.
https://github.com/ponylang/
Maintained by Pony developers, the site describes the early history of the development of the programming language, an overview of the languages, including its features, benefits, and uses, as well as installation instructions, guides to installation, a tutorial, and other documentation. As an open-source language, its files and source are available for download. Pony’s user groups and developer community and programming resources are identified, and a blog is included.
https://www.ponylang.io/
Pony Groups is the top meta-group for the Pony programming language. Pony users looking for assistance may join the Pony User group, while experienced programmers interested in contributing to the development of the language may join the Pony Developer list, and those who want to join a Pony User group in their regional area, there is currently a group in London, and another in New York City, as well as a Virtual Pony User’s group whose members may be from anywhere.
https://pony.groups.io/
The PonyCheck package provides a unit testing framework for the Pony programming language. Designed to be simple, the package includes builtin, time, and collections, which are available for download, either from this site or from GitHub, along with the most recent release, documentation, and version information. Issues or pull requests may be made, and contributors to PonyCheck are acknowledged. Its features, usage, example programs, and integration are defined.
https://stdlib.ponylang.org/ponytest--index
Hosted on Zulip, a team chat application originally developed by Zulip, a company that was acquired by Dropbox in 2014, and released as open-source software the following year, the Pony Language chat is home to the Pony programming language volunteer community. Its code of conduct and social rules are expressed on the Pony site. In order to view or participate in development discussions, a login is required. Accounts may be made by email or log in through Google or GitHub.
https://ponylang.zulipchat.com/
