Skip to content

Latest commit

 

History

History
99 lines (71 loc) · 2.66 KB

README.md

File metadata and controls

99 lines (71 loc) · 2.66 KB
Raw

Braces (the tiny scheme compiler and VM)

Brace for impact

State

This is beyond the state where it's just dabbling around. However at this point I don't have any intentions to turn it into something for real world usage (I'm not sure I could even if I tried). It will likely remain a play ground where I just try out ideas. I'll just see where it takes me.

Usage

Start the REPL and play around with it

make repl

TODO

Compiler

  • datum (s-expression) parser
  • expression parser
  • basic code generator
  • identify tail calls
  • quasi quote
  • make quasi quoting bullet proof (it might have edge cases at the moment)
  • collect all errors in reader
  • collect all errors in parser
  • bytecode serialization (ahead of time compilation)
  • library support
  • include / include-ci
  • cond-expand
  • prepare code for evolution (next rNrs and extensions)
  • optimization pass
  • CPS conversion

Macros

  • add macro expansion phase
  • add procedural macro system (explicit renaming?)

Errors

  • fix backtraces
  • improve error reporting for reader
  • improve error reporting for expressions

VM

  • optimise tail calls
  • closures
  • continuations

Scheme

  • basic types
  • numeric tower
  • ports (basic version)
  • load
  • records
  • srfi parameters

Debugger

  • generate DWARF debug information

GC

Well there is none :D I probably should build one or maybe not.

Repl

  • command support
  • bracket matching
  • completion of bound identifiers

Continuations

  • figure out how to implement them

Problems

There are plenty :D

  • Runtime representation of values isn't at all optimised. It likely uses way too many allocations and holds the types wrong
  • The parser bails after the first error (you'd want to collect all)
  • I'm not sure if the custom ParseResult I use is really needed? (I will have to figure that out)
  • No support for internal defines (we might get away by adding an expansion to letrec*)
  • I'm not sure the location tracking works all the time

Questions

  • let/let*/letrec currently expand to the corresponding lambda expressions. Should it not do that and instead I handle those as special cases in the VM. Would that yield benefits other than being easier to trace and potentially better error reporting?

Optimisations

Once I have the language in a place where it's correct, I can look at more optimizations. I'm still learning rust and some things I simply didn't know when I started.

  • make use of COW or even SUPERCOW for values
  • make sure that references are used correctly to minimise cloning