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Getting started with JetBrains Nitra

61 points by bleakgadfly 12y ago

CmonDev 12y ago
Lack of PCL support makes it's applicability quite limited in today's multi-platform world. Hope they will fix this flaw before releasing. Awesome project nevertheless.
- tgjones 12y ago
  I meant to mention that in the blog post - great point. I really hope PCL support is added. (You could add your support to this issue: https://github.com/JetBrains/Nitra/issues/7 https://github.com/JetBrains/Nitra/issues/7) Whether it happens or not probably depends on how JetBrains themselves plan to use Nitra; hopefully they intend to use it in their cross-platform products.
jimmcslim 12y ago
I've pondered whether this could be used to build better navigation and refactoring tools for Delphi than the official Embarcadero ones, which are frankly dire.
sqs 12y ago
Interesting. It looks like it doesn't support type information yet, but it's coming in milestone 2. I started an open-source project called srclib that's creating toolchains to type-analyze and dependency-analyze source code in multiple languages: https://srclib.org/ https://srclib.org/. It might be of interest to folks working with or using Nitra.
- Ygg2 12y ago
  Reminds ne of Google's project Grok.
- tgjones 12y ago
  srclib looks interesting, I'll take a look. Yeah, I've seen tweets saying they're working on the type system right now, and it will arrive in milestone 2; if it's done right, that's a big area where Nitra can differentiate itself from other parser generators.
- MrBuddyCasino 12y ago
  Nice! It went a little unnoticed in all the noise, but Facebook's Flow project might be of interest here. Its not "just" an advanced type-checker, but it seems it was intended for IDE tooling as well, but I suspect FB wants to keep that internal for now. There is a project on Github, someone created a VIM plugin based on Flow.
mataug 12y ago
Downloaded without realising this was a c# project, and requires visual studio. I'm on linux dammit.
- tgjones 12y ago
  Yeah, sorry. I should mention that in the readme. Of course, if Nitra gets cross platform support, that would be even better.
  - Igglyboo 12y ago
    Any idea if it works with Mono?
- CmonDev 12y ago
  Nitra is actually written in Nemerle. It is open-source just like C#. So in a true Linux spirit should be compilable from command line.
skrebbel 12y ago
If you're interested in stuff like this, be sure to also check out Rascal: http://www.rascal-mpl.org http://www.rascal-mpl.org The focus is slightly different: Rascal focuses more on automated code transformations and less on being a syntax highlighting service for editors. But Rascal is remarkably powerful and surprisingly accessible. Basically, Rascal allows you to build Lispy macros in any language. Or to easily parse-and-transform new languages. Or to design entirely new languages and transpile them into something existing. To drive the point home, CoffeeScript, Nimrod and Sass could've easily been built with Rascal.
- CmonDev 12y ago
  "being a syntax highlighting service for editors" - a bit of an understatement for syntax checking and future refactoring capabilities.
  - skrebbel 12y ago
    I'm not sure that listing all the features Nitra has and Rascal doesn't (or the other way around) is going to help make my point, so you're going to have to do with just one.
- Araq 12y ago
  As the primary author of Nimrod I disagree. ;-) And to be blunt: I know the person has no idea of what he talks about when he uses the word "transpile".
  - skrebbel 12y ago
    Ha! Honoured to have you reply to my comment, sir :-) I wonder, what is the primary reason you believe a tool like Rascal couldn't be the engine behind the Nimrod compiler? (btw, I didn't mean to imply that making the Nimrod compiler is easy in any language - I guess the "easy" word applies more to CoffeeScript and Sass in my previous comment) Regarding the word "transpile" - that was long the common name given to e.g. the CoffeeScript compiler and only recently got out of fashion for obvious reasons. Mind that not everyone who uses an outdated term is entirely clueless. :-)
Robadob 12y ago
Given it's ability to integrate with visual studio, it will be worth watching to see whether someone's able to use it to fix the CUDA integration highlighting/intellisense faults which appeared somewhere after visual studio 2008.
SNvD7vEJ 12y ago
How does Nitra compare to Xtext?

61 points by bleakgadfly 12y ago

Lack of PCL support makes it's applicability quite limited in today's multi-platform world. Hope they will fix this flaw before releasing. Awesome project nevertheless.

tgjones 12y ago
I meant to mention that in the blog post - great point. I really hope PCL support is added. (You could add your support to this issue: https://github.com/JetBrains/Nitra/issues/7 https://github.com/JetBrains/Nitra/issues/7) Whether it happens or not probably depends on how JetBrains themselves plan to use Nitra; hopefully they intend to use it in their cross-platform products.

jimmcslim 12y ago

I've pondered whether this could be used to build better navigation and refactoring tools for Delphi than the official Embarcadero ones, which are frankly dire.

sqs 12y ago

Interesting. It looks like it doesn't support type information yet, but it's coming in milestone 2. I started an open-source project called srclib that's creating toolchains to type-analyze and dependency-analyze source code in multiple languages: https://srclib.org/ https://srclib.org/. It might be of interest to folks working with or using Nitra.

Ygg2 12y ago
Reminds ne of Google's project Grok.
tgjones 12y ago
srclib looks interesting, I'll take a look. Yeah, I've seen tweets saying they're working on the type system right now, and it will arrive in milestone 2; if it's done right, that's a big area where Nitra can differentiate itself from other parser generators.
MrBuddyCasino 12y ago
Nice! It went a little unnoticed in all the noise, but Facebook's Flow project might be of interest here. Its not "just" an advanced type-checker, but it seems it was intended for IDE tooling as well, but I suspect FB wants to keep that internal for now. There is a project on Github, someone created a VIM plugin based on Flow.

mataug 12y ago

Downloaded without realising this was a c# project, and requires visual studio. I'm on linux dammit.

tgjones 12y ago
Yeah, sorry. I should mention that in the readme. Of course, if Nitra gets cross platform support, that would be even better.
- Igglyboo 12y ago
  Any idea if it works with Mono?
CmonDev 12y ago
Nitra is actually written in Nemerle. It is open-source just like C#. So in a true Linux spirit should be compilable from command line.

skrebbel 12y ago

If you're interested in stuff like this, be sure to also check out Rascal: http://www.rascal-mpl.org http://www.rascal-mpl.org The focus is slightly different: Rascal focuses more on automated code transformations and less on being a syntax highlighting service for editors. But Rascal is remarkably powerful and surprisingly accessible. Basically, Rascal allows you to build Lispy macros in any language. Or to easily parse-and-transform new languages. Or to design entirely new languages and transpile them into something existing. To drive the point home, CoffeeScript, Nimrod and Sass could've easily been built with Rascal.

CmonDev 12y ago
"being a syntax highlighting service for editors" - a bit of an understatement for syntax checking and future refactoring capabilities.
- skrebbel 12y ago
  I'm not sure that listing all the features Nitra has and Rascal doesn't (or the other way around) is going to help make my point, so you're going to have to do with just one.
Araq 12y ago
As the primary author of Nimrod I disagree. ;-) And to be blunt: I know the person has no idea of what he talks about when he uses the word "transpile".
- skrebbel 12y ago
  Ha! Honoured to have you reply to my comment, sir :-) I wonder, what is the primary reason you believe a tool like Rascal couldn't be the engine behind the Nimrod compiler? (btw, I didn't mean to imply that making the Nimrod compiler is easy in any language - I guess the "easy" word applies more to CoffeeScript and Sass in my previous comment) Regarding the word "transpile" - that was long the common name given to e.g. the CoffeeScript compiler and only recently got out of fashion for obvious reasons. Mind that not everyone who uses an outdated term is entirely clueless. :-)

Robadob 12y ago

Given it's ability to integrate with visual studio, it will be worth watching to see whether someone's able to use it to fix the CUDA integration highlighting/intellisense faults which appeared somewhere after visual studio 2008.

SNvD7vEJ 12y ago

How does Nitra compare to Xtext?