capybara

a working in progress programming language developed by golang, aim to implement a "modern" language from scratch, with modern type system and popular language keyword/syntax. capybara is backed by llvm. Implementation of capybara make it a good practice of how modern language is compiled and executed.

the compilation phase include

  ast
[emit phase, type check, type substitute]
  -> capybara IR
[dominator frontier analysis, place PHI]
  -> capybara SSA IR
[codegen using go llvm api]
  -> llvm IR

capybara codebase is strongly "inspired" by gocaml. As for language feature, capybara try to absorb nutrition from all kind of modern language, rust, golang scala, koka. The importance of bootstrap a program language of capybara is a process of learning type system, modern compiler design(design a IR and map it from frontend and backend), llvm api.

language feature:

features

• def modifiable

let x = 100
x = 101 // every def is modifiable

every modified def generate a new def in SSA form

• IF/LOOP logic

if a < 123 then 20 else 21; // then and else block last statement give the return value of whole if statement

for (a < 10) { a = a+2 }   // loop statement consist of a condition and a following block

• record, tuple

type person = rec{age:int};
let b = person{age:10};

type ss = tup(int);
let b = ss(121);    // tuple is regard as record with implicit key of 0, 1, 2...

• record method

type person = rec{age:int};
fun (p person) incre(): int = {  // go like method definition
    p.age + 1
};

• enum

type sport = enum{
    running,
    swimming,
    cycling
};
fun f_enum(): int = {
    let b = sport.running;
    b.discriminant  // each enum value is assigned a discriminant value. this design is borrowed from rust
}

• option and match

type some = tup[T](T);
type option = enum[P]{  // option is implemented by enum + tuple, also borrowed from rust
    none,
    some[P]
};
fun f_option(): int = {
    let b = option.some[int](121);
    let r = 0;
    match b {
    case option.some[int](a):  // here a destruction happened, `a` value from some tuple is destructed with polymorphism type
        r = a
    case _:
        r = 11
    };
    r
}

• trait

type person = rec{age:int};
type counter = trait{
    incre(): int
};

fun (p person) incre(): int = {
    p.age + 1
};
let c:counter;
c = person{age:10};  // trait variable `c` is assigned with record value
c.incre(1)

• parametric polymorphism

fun f_g[T](a:T): T = {
    a
};
let x = f_g[int](10) // this will give x with type int

checkout more example at generics_xxx.txt，capybara is currently not supporting type reconstruction. For any parametric polymorphism term, it must be supplied with type argument denoted as [int] or [some_var]. For example, f_g[int](10) is supplied with int as type argument and 10 as value argument.

parametric polymorphism support function, method declaration and inside record, trait as record member type and trait method parameter.

For more parametric polymorphism implementation, checkout blog https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/650582139 (blog is in Chinese)

• bounded quantification

type person = rec{age:int};
type counter = trait{
    add(a:int): int
};

fun (p person) add(a:int): int = {
    p.age + a + 1
};

fun f_bound1[T:counter](c:T, a:int): int = {
    c.add(a)
};

let b = person{age:100};
f_bound1[person](b, 1)

Bounded quantification is occurred whenever parametric polymorphism is occurred. Parametric polymorphism without bound can be seen as it has a lowest type bound. For more bounded quantification implementation, checkout https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/662789488 (blog is in Chinese)