Programming Languages

1384 readers

1 users here now

Hello!

This is the current Lemmy equivalent of https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammingLanguages/.

The content and rules are the same here as they are over there. Taken directly from the /r/ProgrammingLanguages overview:

This community is dedicated to the theory, design and implementation of programming languages.

Be nice to each other. Flame wars and rants are not welcomed. Please also put some effort into your post.

This isn't the right place to ask questions such as "What language should I use for X", "what language should I learn", and "what's your favorite language". Such questions should be posted in /c/learn_programming or /c/programming.

This is the right place for posts like the following:

"Check out this new language I've been working on!"
"Here's a blog post on how I implemented static type checking into this compiler"
"I want to write a compiler, where do I start?"
"How does the Java compiler work? How does it handle forward declarations/imports/targeting multiple platforms/?"
"How should I test my compiler? How are other compilers and interpreters like gcc, Java, and python tested?"
"What are the pros/cons of ?"
"Compare and contrast vs. "
"Confused about the semantics of this language"
"Proceedings from PLDI / OOPSLA / ICFP / "

See /r/ProgrammingLanguages for specific examples

Related online communities

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

armchair_progamer@programming.dev

Creating a programming language (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by MITM0@lemmy.world to c/programming_languages@programming.dev

4 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I am quite nervous while asking this question, but let's say one wants to create a language.

What materials & tools one could use to get started on this path of madness ??

EDIT: I wanted to create an alternative to Javascript😂 with a syntax similar to Bash

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] vivalapivo@lemmy.today 2 points 1 week ago

There are two main directions here.

For General Purpose Language you need to define the language lexical idioms (control flow, data/types, state, dependency, etc.): basically how you express Turing Machine. Then you need to write a compiler that takes the AST and transforms it to LLVM IR (if we want to stay realistic). I can't recommend any particular book regarding this, I read it in a classic Ullman's book but it might be outdated. Take any book that has compilers in the title and a dragon on cover.
For Domain Specific Language, you need to parse the AST into a graph of execution and then walk and execute it. You don't really need to design it first, as the language will have a limited application. You can even use Parse Tree both as AST and as IR, applying various optimisations in place. Here you take M. Fowler's book on Domain Specific Languages and just read.

I've never touched the GP languages apart from some conference talks and uni, but I am keen on creating a DSL for every company I work in. That's a good practice when things become very nasty and you just need something simple to express very complex logic.