Domestic programming language 'Mulan' attracts controversy: it claims to be completely independent, but in fact it is almost the same as Python

Recently, some media said that a domestic programming language for intelligent Internet of Things and programming education was launched, named Mulan. As soon as the news came out, it sparked discussion in the developer community. But someone discovered that after unpacking the downloaded program package - is it Python?

With the increasing frequency of human-computer interaction, programming is becoming the "third most important basic discipline" in this era, from C, C to Python, Julia, different Programming languages ​​have large development communities due to their own features and capabilities.

In addition, once a programming language establishes its own ecosystem in a field, its status is almost difficult to shake, such as the Go language launched by Google in the field of cloud computing and Swift designed by Apple. Language, Oracle-controlled Java language standard, etc.

A few days ago, some media reported that the State Key Laboratory of Computer Architecture of the Institute of Computing Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (hereinafter referred to as the Institute of Computing Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences) stated that the domestic programming language "Mulan" (Mulan) ( Mulan: Module Unit Language) was officially released. "Mulan" is positioned as a programming language for intelligent IoT applications and adopts the latest programming language design concepts and compilation technology. The development team is committed to making it a "C language in the era of intelligent IoT" ".

The report also stated that "Mulan" is a programming language completely independently designed, developed and implemented by the compilation laboratory. The supporting compiler and integrated development tools are also completely independently implemented by the team. It is a truly mastery of the core. Technical programming language.

Currently, Mulan language is available for download. Download address: dongshouke.com

As soon as the report came out, it attracted the attention of developers. Developers went to download, use and study it. However, after unpacking, they found that this is actually Python 3.7?

Developer releases early learning notes: Almost the same as python!

Everyone has great expectations for the completely self-designed "domestic programming language". Netizen @的cyclist-addicted young man went to the official website to download it as soon as possible.

After the download was completed, I found that something was not right with the icon.

Isn’t this obviously packaged by pyinstall? The netizen complained: I know how to change the icon for the software I release pyqt, but for such a big project, I don’t even change the icon?

After opening, there will be a dialog box similar to python

It provides so many functions, which are almost the same as python

Try the reverse I tried to decipher it, thinking it would be encrypted. After all, it is a commercial software. When we write pyqt ourselves, we sometimes encrypt it.

However, the result is that there is no encryption at all and it is directly cracked:

is written in python.

There are also many developers discussing this on Zhihu.

Many developers have discovered that the unpacked Mulan language is actually built on Python, compiling the environment, packages and projects built by Python into an executable file. So it seems that Mulan just made an interface at the top level and handed over all the low-level compilation, optimization and many other tasks to the original Python?

The following is the unpacking result of the EXE file (using PyInstaller Extractor):

It can be seen from the unpacking result that the "Mulan" language Pyinstaller is used to package Python files into EXE executable files.

In fact, the classical Chinese programming language that we were familiar with before was very clear that it only focused on syntax and front-end, leaving all underlying operations to JavaScript or Python.

Developer Community: There are slightly more flaws

A developer evaluated Mulan language from the following three perspectives:

1. Whether it can meet actual needs: A programming needs many features to make it capable of working in some scenarios. But there seems to be no characteristic reflected in Mulan language at present.

2. Whether to integrate into the open source community: It is difficult to make progress in a language that is not open source.

3. Is it suitable for youth programming: As an educational language, it is not as intuitive as a graphical symbolic language. Students still need to relearn programming languages ​​when working after graduation.

For more related discussions, please view the link: https://www.zhihu.com/question/366509495

Summary:

In general, in addition to basic data structures and functions, Mulan language also adds some basic mathematical operations, such as logarithms, exponents, trigonometric functions, etc. Maybe they are more suitable for some basic education.

If you only consider programming for children and package the Python environment into a runnable file, then this may be no problem. But calling it a programming language with independent property rights would be an exaggeration.

Many other developers have also expressed their opinions, whether they are complaining about the design of the language itself or complaining about the surrounding materials of the programming language. At the same time, it can be seen from everyone’s comments that we hope to make real contributions in the underlying architecture and tools such as programming languages ​​and system frameworks. These contributions may take a long time to settle and a lot of engineering to optimize, but this is what we should work hard to overcome.

This article is reproduced from: https://www.ednchina.com/news/202001171403.html