61–70 of 159 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
i think so. The biggest hurdle with new languages is that you are cut off from a 3rdparty library ecosystem. Being compatible with C 3rd party libraries is a big win.
Makes it easy to "try before you buy", too. If you decide it's not for you, you can "step out" and keep the generated C code and go from there.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
i think so. The biggest hurdle with new languages is that you are cut off from a 3rdparty library ecosystem. Being compatible with C 3rd party libraries is a big win.
Makes it easy to "try before you buy", too. If you decide it's not for you, you can "step out" and keep the generated C code and go from there.
At least for now, generated code shouldn't be considered something you're ever supposed to interact with.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Assembly requires way more work than compiling to, say C. Clang and gcc do a lot of the heavy lifting regarding optimisation, spilling values to the stack, etc
Then you're stuck with the C stack, though, and no way to collect garbage.
I mean, I could have used the C stack as the VM's stack but then you have to worry about blowing up the stack, not having access (without a bunch of hackery, looking at you scheme people) to the values on the stack for GC and whatnot and, I imagine, all the other things you have issues with but it's not needed at all, just make your own (or, you know, tail call) and pretend the C one doesn't exist.
And I've started on another VM which does the traditional stack thing but it's constrained (by the spec) to have a maximum stack depth so isn't too much trouble.
Syntax aside, how does this compare to Nim? Nim does similar, I think Crystal does as well? Not entirely sure about Crystal tbh. I guess Nim and Vala, since I believe both transpile to C, so you really get "like C" output from both.
> Mutability > By default, variables are mutable. You can enable Immutable by Default mode using a directive. > //> immutable-by-default > var x = 10; > // x = 20; // Error: x is immutable > var mut y = 10; > y = 20; // OK Wait, but this means that if I’m reading somebody’s code, I won’t know if variables are mutable or not unless I read the whole file looking for such directive. Imagine if someone even defined custo…
Given an option that is configurable, why would the default setting be the one that increases probability of errors? For some niches the answer is "because the convenience is worth it" (e.g. game jams). But I personally think the error prone option should be opt in for such cases. Or to be blunt: correctness should not be opt-in. It should be opt-out. I have considered such a flag for my future language, which I name…
One can perfectly fine write correct programs using mutable variables. It's not a security feature, it's a design decision.
That being said, I agree with you that the author should decide if Zen-C should be either mutable or immutable by default, with special syntax for the other case. As it is now, it's confusing when reading code.
Syntax aside, how does this compare to Nim? Nim does similar, I think Crystal does as well? Not entirely sure about Crystal tbh. I guess Nim and Vala, since I believe both transpile to C, so you really get "like C" output from both.
man I haven't heard anything about Vala in ages . is it still actively developed/used? how is it?
Quite easy to make apps with it and GNOME Builder makes it really easy to package it for distribution (creates a proper flatpak environment, no need to make all the boilerplate). It's quite nice to work with, and make stuff happen. Gtk docs and awful deprecation culture (deprecate functions without any real alternative) are still a PITA though.
> Mutability > By default, variables are mutable. You can enable Immutable by Default mode using a directive. > //> immutable-by-default > var x = 10; > // x = 20; // Error: x is immutable > var mut y = 10; > y = 20; // OK Wait, but this means that if I’m reading somebody’s code, I won’t know if variables are mutable or not unless I read the whole file looking for such directive. Imagine if someone even defined custo…
Given an option that is configurable, why would the default setting be the one that increases probability of errors? For some niches the answer is "because the convenience is worth it" (e.g. game jams). But I personally think the error prone option should be opt in for such cases. Or to be blunt: correctness should not be opt-in. It should be opt-out. I have considered such a flag for my future language, which I name…
A classic strategy!
The whole language examples seem pretty rational, and I'm especially pleased / shocked by the `loop / repeat 5` examples. I love the idea of having syntax support for "maximum number of iterations", eg: repeat 3 { try { curl(...) && break } except { continue } } ...obviously not trying to start any holy wars around exceptions (which don't seem supported) or exponential backoff (or whatever), but I guess I'm kindof sh…
Ruby has a similarly intuitive `3.times do ... end` syntax
for range 5 { ... } var f = fopen("file.txt", "r");
defer fclose(f);
if fread(&ch, 1, 1, f) Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nim is a high-level language as well and compiles to C.
Odin and Jai are others.