lacaranian / lang

Making a toy language or two to explore programming language design

Lang

An exercise in programming language design.

Currently figuring out what it wants to be, but eventually this aspires to be a toy programming language compiler.

Design goals

• Zero-runtime cost abstractions
• Functional/declarative first, imperative/mutable second
  • Monadic side effects
• OO via Algebraic Data Types and a typeclass/trait system
• Type System (wishlist of things to explore, these may conflict with each other)
  • Calculus of Constructions
  • Parametric polymorphism
  • Row polymorphism (polymorphism by composition)
  • Dependent types/quantification
  • Cumulative subtyping
  • Enough constraints to make type inference decidable
• A quiet prelude with just constructs used for most programs
  • Common data types/collections (Unit, Nat, Option, List, Map)
  • Category theoretical typeclasses
• Compile to other languages or IR to let them get native codegen