Insert <it’s not much but it’s honest work> meme. It only supports ints and bools, some logic and simple arithmetics and it compiles to Java but damn was it hard to get that far.

Can you guess what everything does?

  • @[email protected]
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    1 year ago
    class Scratch {
      // Start of file
    
      public static void main(args: string[]) {
        int number1 = 2;
        number 1 = 10;
        int number2 = 13;
        boolean fo_sure = true;
      
        if (fo_sure) {
          number1 = number1 + 5 - 10 * 2 / 3;
        }
      
        System.out.println(number1);
      
        boolean canYouSeeMee = false;
        System.out.println(canYouSeeMe);
        if (false) {
          canYouSeeMe = false;
        } else {
          canYouSeeMe = true;
        }
        System.out.println(canYouSeeMe);
      } 
    }
    

    What’d I win?

    I find it interesting and unnerving that I understood the code, but not the youthspeak.

  • @[email protected]
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    1051 year ago

    It only supports ints and bools, some logic and simple arithmetics and it compiles to Java but damn was it hard to get that far.

    I have a bachelor’s in computer science and I don’t think I would be able to do that…

    • @[email protected]
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      381 year ago

      Compilers are a specialized topic - and syntax design is fiddly - but it really is no harder than any other sort of program. A lot of the hard theoretical work was done back in the sixties and seventies. You don’t have to start from scratch. These days it’s “only” a matter of implementing the features you want and making sure your syntax doesn’t leave itself open to multiple interpretations. (just as arithmetic, e.g. ‘5 × 4 - 1’ requires some rules to make sure there’s only one correct interpretation, so do language syntaxes need to be unambiguous to parse. )

      Don’t get me wrong - writing a language is a lot of work and it’s super cool that OP has done this! I just want to stress that language development is 100% doable with an undergrad degree. If you understand recursion and how to parse a string you already have all the theory you need to get started.

      • @[email protected]OP
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        81 year ago

        Valuable input! I actually am an undergrad student. There are a lot of frameworks out there that support writing languages, with MPS being one of them.

        If I’d start from scratch again and had a little more time, I’d frankly try writing an interpreter myself, instead of trying to conform to weird framework syntax, which I won’t be able to reuse in any other context.

        Saying syntax design is fiddly is an understatement. I focused very hard on getting an abstract syntax somehow finished before working on generation in my first iteration. Then I had so much technical debt, that I couldn’t get anything to work and had to rewrite a lot. So I scrapped it all and started again, starting with top level concepts including generation and only implementing some lower level ones, once everything around it worked properly.

    • Sibbo
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      591 year ago

      Compiler courses are typically master level.

      • @[email protected]
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        341 year ago

        My college must have been full of sadists. They had undergrad compiler courses and required students to take them.

        • @[email protected]
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          Same, it usually whacked about half the attempted majors into another major. In the first half of senior year. They kept wondering why their program wasn’t growing much even though similar colleges’ programs were growing like mold on a dorm shower curtain. I enjoyed the course and never used the primary skills taught in it again.

          • @[email protected]
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            21 year ago

            It really depends on what you do, but somehow, I actually did end up using some of the things those courses were teaching. It turns out the visitor pattern is extremely useful for writing JavaScript code transformers.

      • slst
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        1 year ago

        Im having a mandatory compiler course on my 3rd year of (french) bachelor

        • @[email protected]
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          61 year ago

          I definitely read this as you were a third year French major being forced to taking a compiler course for a moment and went wtf. Then my brain slapped itself and realized you mean you’re a student in France.

          • @[email protected]
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            11 year ago

            Nah, I think they’ve won the French version of The Bachelor 2 years in a row and are about to win the third.

          • slst
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            1 year ago

            Haha yeah I meant that I was studying computer science im France and not studying french. Here in France, bachelor are called licence and are only 3 years compared to 4 in north america afaik, but there are way fewer electives

      • @[email protected]
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        I had an entry-level compiler course during undergrad. We used JavaCC to generate a lexer and parser based on eBNF grammar.

    • @[email protected]
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      11 year ago

      It’s likely transpiring and not compiling, so it’s a lot easier than it seems. Source: made a language that adds features to Python and transpiles to valid Python.

      • @[email protected]OP
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        11 year ago

        It doesn’t compile or transpile in actuality. It generates Java based on an abstract syntax tree. The concrete syntax is not considered in Java generation by MPS.

  • @[email protected]
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    101 year ago

    It only supports ints and bools, some logic and simple arithmetics

    That’s more than you need.

  • @[email protected]
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    Vibe check is your scope declaration (class?)

    num is obviously your int class

    fr? is your Boolean class

    if __ no cap is ’ if __ then’, if cap is ‘else’, sheesh ends the conditional

    flex __ on the haters is your echo/print

    frfr is your scope ending

  • @[email protected]
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    81 year ago

    Does it compile into JVM bytecode or Java source code?

    JVM bytecode is one of the most infuriating IRs I ever had the displeasure to work with, and if you managed to make a compiler for that, I applaud you.

    • @[email protected]OP
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      71 year ago

      Fortunately I generate Java source code from it. However MPS generates both source and byte code when you build the solution. For some reason I can’t get the byte code to run though, but the source code does, so I don’t care too much.

  • People are designing languages with JetBrains MPS and I am making an AWK interpreter in C with Yacc, Lex and my own implementation of ASDL. Why do I do this to myself? It seems like the technology I like is way behind. Like C is a language created for freaking mini-computers like VAX and PDP-11 and I still use it? I knew about MPS, I just felt a strong dislike towards it. Now that I am no longer a pill addict, I have to reconsider the technology I choose to implement my stuff. C lacks portability, and QoL features.

    (Psyche! All you n000bz can be stuck with your Fischer-Price toys — I’ll do it MY way, the 70s WAY!!!1)

  • SuperDuper
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    91 year ago

    Looks like you’ve got a bug in there.

    if false no cap
        canYouSeeMe = false
    if cap
        canYouSeeMe = true
    sheesh
    

    Won’t this always go into the else/cap condition since the if condition is checking to see that false == true?

    • @[email protected]OP
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      71 year ago

      You’re correct, but it doesn’t really matter for demo purposes. In an actual use case (whatever that would be for this language) you would of course want to use some kind of variable or expression there instead of a constant.