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So, my after-work project these days is a language that transpiles to C++ and can do all that current C++ can do. The grammar is completely regular, and the sy

by pldrnt 11y ago

So, my after-work project these days is a language that transpiles to C++ and can do all that current C++ can do. The grammar is completely regular, and the syntax maps 1:1 with the ast in memory, I can generate one from the other idempotently. The main reason I am doing this is that I wanted a language that is easy to build tooling for (including of course code transformations) while being compatible with existing C++ libraries out there. This kind of articles give me hope there might actually be demand for my crazy thing once it grows up.

skrebbel 11y ago
So basically a CoffeeScript for C++? That sounds like a pretty good idea in fact. But doesn't "compatible with C++ libraries" imply compatible with .h files, and thus with the preprocessor?
- pldrnt 11y ago
  Yes, that is the idea. Dealing with the preprocessor is a lost cause, so I just don't, the idea at the moment is to let the preprocessor do its thing and pipe the output into ctags (and if a better ctags comes out in the future it will be trivial to put that in instead), the result is not 100% perfect but is good enough to capture most of the declarations present in the included headers and make them visible to this language. If a library absolutely requires preprocessor macros to be useable, someone will have to make equivalent hygienic macros in this language but at least you won't have to make a huge wrapper for everything.
madmoose 11y ago
Any relation to http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~damian/papers/HTML/ModestProposal.html http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~damian/papers/HTML/ModestProp... ?
- pldrnt 11y ago
  I read that paper a long time ago and it was certainly an inspiration :) Originally, the language started out quite different but I can now see why SPECS looks the way it does, I do not agree with everything they did and my effort these days is towards making it simpler and smaller but there's some convergent evolution indeed.

by pldrnt 11y ago

skrebbel 11y ago

So basically a CoffeeScript for C++? That sounds like a pretty good idea in fact. But doesn't "compatible with C++ libraries" imply compatible with .h files, and thus with the preprocessor?

pldrnt 11y ago
Yes, that is the idea. Dealing with the preprocessor is a lost cause, so I just don't, the idea at the moment is to let the preprocessor do its thing and pipe the output into ctags (and if a better ctags comes out in the future it will be trivial to put that in instead), the result is not 100% perfect but is good enough to capture most of the declarations present in the included headers and make them visible to this language. If a library absolutely requires preprocessor macros to be useable, someone will have to make equivalent hygienic macros in this language but at least you won't have to make a huge wrapper for everything.

madmoose 11y ago

Any relation to http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~damian/papers/HTML/ModestProposal.html http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~damian/papers/HTML/ModestProp... ?

pldrnt 11y ago
I read that paper a long time ago and it was certainly an inspiration :) Originally, the language started out quite different but I can now see why SPECS looks the way it does, I do not agree with everything they did and my effort these days is towards making it simpler and smaller but there's some convergent evolution indeed.