Editing Limbo (programming language) (section)

{{Short description|Programming language}}
{{Other uses|Limbo (disambiguation)}}
{{more citations needed|date=October 2013}}
{{Infobox programming language
 |name = Limbo
 |logo =
 |paradigm = [[Concurrent computing|Concurrent]]
 |year = {{Start date and age|1995}}
 |designer = Sean Dorward, Phil Winterbottom, [[Rob Pike]]
 |developer = [[Bell Labs]] / [[Vita Nuova Holdings]]
 |discontinued = <!-- Set to yes if software is discontinued, otherwise omit. -->
 |ver layout = <!-- simple (default) or stacked -->
 |latest_release_version =
 |latest_release_date =
 |typing = [[Strongly-typed programming language|Strong]]
 |implementations = Dis virtual machine
 |dialects =
 |influenced_by = [[C (programming language)|C]], [[Pascal (programming language)|Pascal]], [[Communicating sequential processes|CSP]], [[Alef (programming language)|Alef]], [[Newsqueak]]
 |influenced = [[Stackless Python]], [[Go (programming language)|Go]], [[Rust (programming language)|Rust]]
 |operating_system = [[Inferno (operating system)|Inferno]]
 |license = [[GNU GPL]] v2, see NOTICE in limbo subfolder of the tarball
 |website = {{URL|http://www.vitanuova.com/inferno/limbo.html}}
}}

'''Limbo''' is a [[programming language]] for writing distributed systems and is the language used to write [[Application software|applications]] for the [[Inferno (operating system)|Inferno operating system]]. It was designed at [[Bell Labs]] by [[Sean Dorward]], [[Phil Winterbottom]], and [[Rob Pike]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.vitanuova.com/inferno/limbo.html |title=Inferno Application Programming |website= vitanuova |publisher= vitanuova |access-date=January 26, 2021}}</ref>

The Limbo [[compiler]] generates [[Computer architecture|architecture]]-independent [[object code]] which is then interpreted by the '''Dis virtual machine''' or compiled just before runtime to improve performance. Therefore all Limbo applications are completely portable across all Inferno platforms.

Limbo's approach to concurrency was inspired by [[C. A. R. Hoare|Hoare]]'s [[communicating sequential processes]] (CSP), as implemented and amended in Pike's earlier [[Newsqueak]] language and Winterbottom's [[Alef (programming language)|Alef]].