4 ms·

Has there ever been an attempt to create a high/low level language pair?

10 points by Decabytes 3y ago

agumonkey 3y ago
informally I read about many many lispers ending up doing their own assembler to enjoy live/dynamic metaprogrammable native code other languages ended up adding this (can't remember the name) depending on their niche, because one always hit performance issue
082349872349872 3y ago
Just in the 1980s: Forth/asm C/asm shell/C all langs on VMS TCL/C etc.
PH95VuimJjqBqy 3y ago
I feel like C++ is the answer here, only it's a single language rather than two.
Qem 3y ago
Was going to mention Smalltalk/Slang and PyPy/RPython, pleased to see people already pointed them. There was even a Smalltalk implemented using RPython, but unfortunately that project seems not to be active. Last change 5 years ago: https://github.com/hpi-swa/RSqueak https://github.com/hpi-swa/RSqueak
Xorathena 3y ago
...like the past few decades of Python/Ruby/Node/etc wrapping C-ABI libraries from any language? https://docs.python.org/3/extending/extending.html https://docs.python.org/3/extending/extending.html https://nodejs.org/dist/latest-v20.x/docs/api/n-api.html#node-api https://nodejs.org/dist/latest-v20.x/docs/api/n-api.html#nod... https://docs.python.org/3/library/ctypes.html https://docs.python.org/3/library/ctypes.html https://swig.org https://swig.org When using Zig functions and structs on the low side there are some nice opportunities for making the low/high interface more automatic at comptime, especially when you're jointly compiling (your Zig code + a Zig-based Python interpreter + your Python code) together into one WASM blob. Disclaimer/public-commitment-to-getting-it-released: I've written most of a Python interpreter in Zig as part of another project. (just the basics — won't be big and professional like CPython.) I'll reply here eventually when it's done, available as FLOSS, and ready to say "high-low".
- DanielHB 3y ago
  ABIs are not enough, it is a huge pain in the ass to setup the function invocations, especially cross-platform. Having separate compiling and linking steps for each part of the codebase and stuff is a huge pain. I think Bun (NodeJS-compatible runtime) was planning to add native support for importing C and Zig code directly from JS with typescript codegen. But even that is still a bit meh, you also need some data-exchange format so you can pass complex data structures without paying a serialisation/deserialisation cost.

10 points by Decabytes 3y ago

informally I read about many many lispers ending up doing their own assembler to enjoy live/dynamic metaprogrammable native code other languages ended up adding this (can't remember the name) depending on their niche, because one always hit performance issue

082349872349872 3y ago

Just in the 1980s: Forth/asm C/asm shell/C all langs on VMS TCL/C etc.

PH95VuimJjqBqy 3y ago

I feel like C++ is the answer here, only it's a single language rather than two.

Qem 3y ago

Was going to mention Smalltalk/Slang and PyPy/RPython, pleased to see people already pointed them. There was even a Smalltalk implemented using RPython, but unfortunately that project seems not to be active. Last change 5 years ago: https://github.com/hpi-swa/RSqueak https://github.com/hpi-swa/RSqueak

Xorathena 3y ago

...like the past few decades of Python/Ruby/Node/etc wrapping C-ABI libraries from any language? https://docs.python.org/3/extending/extending.html https://docs.python.org/3/extending/extending.html https://nodejs.org/dist/latest-v20.x/docs/api/n-api.html#node-api https://nodejs.org/dist/latest-v20.x/docs/api/n-api.html#nod... https://docs.python.org/3/library/ctypes.html https://docs.python.org/3/library/ctypes.html https://swig.org https://swig.org When using Zig functions and structs on the low side there are some nice opportunities for making the low/high interface more automatic at comptime, especially when you're jointly compiling (your Zig code + a Zig-based Python interpreter + your Python code) together into one WASM blob. Disclaimer/public-commitment-to-getting-it-released: I've written most of a Python interpreter in Zig as part of another project. (just the basics — won't be big and professional like CPython.) I'll reply here eventually when it's done, available as FLOSS, and ready to say "high-low".

DanielHB 3y ago
ABIs are not enough, it is a huge pain in the ass to setup the function invocations, especially cross-platform. Having separate compiling and linking steps for each part of the codebase and stuff is a huge pain. I think Bun (NodeJS-compatible runtime) was planning to add native support for importing C and Zig code directly from JS with typescript codegen. But even that is still a bit meh, you also need some data-exchange format so you can pass complex data structures without paying a serialisation/deserialisation cost.