iz: a programming language for me

Examples

a + b == (add a b) == {b a add}

(add (add 1 2) 3) == {3 {2 1 add} add} == {3 2 1 add add}

Goals

• Adaptable: I don't know what I'll want in the future. A language for me needs to support both type theory and custom allocators.
• Performant: iteration time and runtime are both important to me.
• Small: I prefer systems with minimal feature sets that can be extended.

Compiler

• There’s a consistent intermediate representation across all passes, which is a Tree
• A Tree has a slice of source text for errors, a list of children Trees, and arbitrary data
• The initial Tree has a 0..0 slice, one child leaf for each character, and no data
• The final Tree has a 0..0 slice, no children, and executable data
• Each compiler pass is a Tree mutator, which may return errors
• Each compiler pass should recur depth-first postorder

Language

• Syntax: () + {} + [] + mixfix
  • Space separation like Forth and Lisp
• Semantics: stack based by default
  • () is reverse execution order
  • {} is forward execution order
• Userland
  • If statements, while loops, etc.
  • Operator overloading and definition
  • Find-and-replace hygienic macros
  • Namespaces
    • use imports any scope
    • All structs have a scope that contains their fields and methods
    • Struct scopes can be used for faking inheritance with composition

Todo

Formalize the idea of contexts and scopes and passes