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Lang Jam: create a programming language in a weekend

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Re: Lang Jam: create a programming language in a weekend

#41

Post by mhio »

neysofu wrote: post #26
fouc wrote: post #23

What kind of language ideas do you folks have? What would your fizzbuzz look like? I'm not sure I've ever seen a more readable compact fizzbuzz than this version in coffeescript ['fizz' unless i%3] + ['buzz' unless i%5] or i for i in [1..100]

The usage of `unless` strikes me as unmaintainable and "smart", not in a good way tbh. The types are all other the places, too. What is it even doing exactly? Appending a string to a null value..?

> Appending a string to a null value..?

Appending a string to an undefined value, via array addition, which turns them into strings but doesn't turn null into 'null' or undefined into 'undefined'. It's a bit of a hack.

`'a' + undefined === 'aundefined'`

`[ 'a' ] + [ undefined ] === 'a'`

Also the empty string '' evaluates to false.

`[ undefined ] + [ undefined ] == ''`

This is wat - https://archive.org/details/wat_destroyallsoftware

Re: Lang Jam: create a programming language in a weekend

#42

Post by rlp »

Zababa wrote: post #39
codetrotter wrote: post #20

As someone that writes a lot in Rust, I have a longstanding dream to make a compiler for a subset of the language, since I don’t use all features of Rust and my hope is that this way I could have fast debug builds (in terms of compilation time) while I develop, with simplified borrow checker and so on. So then I can iterate faster. That’s one of my dreams. But I have not had time to even look at it yet, as the other…

I think you would be better served by a simplified, less optimized code generation, as from what I understand LLVM is the thing that takes a lot of time. You can see this pattern in Crystal and Swift for example, that also use LLVM and are also relatively slow to compile, compared to OCaml or Go which have their own backend.

There's a Cranelift backend, which is apparently faster at creating debug builds than LLVM: https://github.com/bjorn3/rustc_codegen_cranelift

Re: Lang Jam: create a programming language in a weekend

#43

Post by pfraze »

fouc wrote: post #23

What kind of language ideas do you folks have? What would your fizzbuzz look like? I'm not sure I've ever seen a more readable compact fizzbuzz than this version in coffeescript ['fizz' unless i%3] + ['buzz' unless i%5] or i for i in [1..100]

I would build around a constrained high-level concept. Something like actors, perhaps. It would be assembly-like, command-oriented.

I would then build a visualization environment which shows what the actors are doing, possibly step-by-step. It would show them moving values between registers and buffers. It would show messages passing between actors. It would show new actors create and finished actors die and errors get dumped into the canvas.

Your concept as an end-user would be that you're programming these automatons. You could clearly visualize what's occurring and debug control-flow or algorithmic issues by stepping through their movements.

Maybe not a great idea in the long run, but if it was a weekend lang jam, that's what I'd do.

Re: Lang Jam: create a programming language in a weekend

#44

Post by Zababa »

amelius wrote: post #27
tyingq wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe some ideas here: https://github.com/thepowersgang/mrustc

Why would someone write a bootstrapping rust compiler in C++ when you can just compile the rust to C using a proper llvm backend?

LLVM doesn't support everything. If you want to see what is not supported, the story about Python cryptography migrating from C to Rust is a good start https://lwn.net/Articles/845535/.

Re: Lang Jam: create a programming language in a weekend

#45

Post by throwaway17_17 »

gwbas1c wrote: post #30
fouc wrote: post #23

What kind of language ideas do you folks have? What would your fizzbuzz look like? I'm not sure I've ever seen a more readable compact fizzbuzz than this version in coffeescript ['fizz' unless i%3] + ['buzz' unless i%5] or i for i in [1..100]

Another "crazy" idea: I'd like the compiler to reformat code to match strict style conventions. Why? Sometimes there's no "right" style. Sometimes novices need training wheels. In the long run, style doesn't matter, but in big projects code is easier to read when style is consistent. It's also easier to onboard when code follows industry-standard styles. Would it be better when a language gently pushes everyone to th…

That’s an idea I’ve been playing around with for my personal language. If I do decide to release it, I have a feeling there will be common style rules that will be required for any ‘library’ code (it would be like if C++ files had to meet google style guides to be posted to some central collection repo). I think the compiler could implement the conversion, but it could require a programmer supplied ‘translation’ file (like including Unicode to ASCII substitutions, or required macro unrolling to some language core set of language features). That would allow for anyone to keep there code formatted in the most logical way for them, but would allow for a common format for distribution. I would also think going the other way, from public style to private should be a possibility.

I don’t know if I will ever actually put my personal language out for release, but I’ve had two acquaintances repeatedly tell me (along with several HN commenters) that I really should at least release some blog posts about the language. Currently it is just my daily driver for work related programming and it compiles to C++, C, or JavaScript.

Re: Lang Jam: create a programming language in a weekend

#47

Post by D7x7w9pHnT »

fouc wrote: post #23

What kind of language ideas do you folks have? What would your fizzbuzz look like? I'm not sure I've ever seen a more readable compact fizzbuzz than this version in coffeescript ['fizz' unless i%3] + ['buzz' unless i%5] or i for i in [1..100]

My favourite FizzBuzz is in Haskell, I found it in this talk by Kevlin Henney[0], and looks like this:

  fizzes   = cycle ["", "", "Fizz"]
  buzzes   = cycle ["", "", "", "", "Buzzes"]
  words    = zipWith (++) fizzes buzzes
  numbers  = map show [1..]
  fizzbuzz = zipWith max words numbers
Henney explains in detail in the video, but it makes use of lazy evaluation to create an infinite list of FizzBuzzes, and also uses no if statements. I find it intellectually exciting, but make no claims on readability

[0]https://youtu.be/LueeMTTDePg?t=2891

Re: Lang Jam: create a programming language in a weekend

#48

Post by gwbas1c »

codetrotter wrote: post #20

As someone that writes a lot in Rust, I have a longstanding dream to make a compiler for a subset of the language, since I don’t use all features of Rust and my hope is that this way I could have fast debug builds (in terms of compilation time) while I develop, with simplified borrow checker and so on. So then I can iterate faster. That’s one of my dreams. But I have not had time to even look at it yet, as the other…

I'd like a GC (no borrow checker) version of Rust. There's so many cool concepts in the language that I'd like to know how useful it is in different contexts. (Compiled without a VM, option types, no nulls, easy error handling without exceptions...)

Re: Lang Jam: create a programming language in a weekend

#49

Post by userbinator »

gwbas1c wrote: post #30
fouc wrote: post #23

What kind of language ideas do you folks have? What would your fizzbuzz look like? I'm not sure I've ever seen a more readable compact fizzbuzz than this version in coffeescript ['fizz' unless i%3] + ['buzz' unless i%5] or i for i in [1..100]

Another "crazy" idea: I'd like the compiler to reformat code to match strict style conventions. Why? Sometimes there's no "right" style. Sometimes novices need training wheels. In the long run, style doesn't matter, but in big projects code is easier to read when style is consistent. It's also easier to onboard when code follows industry-standard styles. Would it be better when a language gently pushes everyone to th…

In other domains, that is called authoritarianism.

Re: Lang Jam: create a programming language in a weekend

#50

Post by Zababa »

gwbas1c wrote: post #48
codetrotter wrote: post #20

As someone that writes a lot in Rust, I have a longstanding dream to make a compiler for a subset of the language, since I don’t use all features of Rust and my hope is that this way I could have fast debug builds (in terms of compilation time) while I develop, with simplified borrow checker and so on. So then I can iterate faster. That’s one of my dreams. But I have not had time to even look at it yet, as the other…

I'd like a GC (no borrow checker) version of Rust. There's so many cool concepts in the language that I'd like to know how useful it is in different contexts. (Compiled without a VM, option types, no nulls, easy error handling without exceptions...)

You could try OCaml (it does have exception but they're usually "opt in"), it's a really nice language and probably one of the closest to GC'd Rust. There's also Swift that inspired some features.
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