Co-dfns
lobster
Co-dfns | lobster | |
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19 | 37 | |
655 | 2,142 | |
0.6% | - | |
9.6 | 9.3 | |
2 days ago | 8 days ago | |
APL | C++ | |
GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 | - |
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Co-dfns
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Tacit Programming
And if anyone wants an absolute masterclass in tacit programming, have a look at Aaron's Co-dfns compiler. The README has extensive reference material. https://github.com/Co-dfns/Co-dfns/
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YAML Parser for Dyalog APL
I don't put a lot of stock in the "write-only" accusation. I think it's mostly used by those who don't know APL because, first, it's clever, and second, they can't read the code. However, if I remember I implemented something in J 10 years ago, I will definitely dig out the code because that's the fastest way by far for me to remember how it works.
This project specifically looks to be done in a flat array style similar to Co-dfns[0]. It's not a very common way to use APL. However, I've maintained an array-based compiler [1] for several years, and don't find that reading is a particular difficulty. Debugging is significantly easier than a scalar compiler, because the computation works on arrays drawn from the entire source code, and it's easy to inspect these and figure out what doesn't match expectations. I wrote most of [2] using a more traditional compiler architecture and it's easier to write and extend but feels about the same for reading and small tweaks. See also my review [3] of the denser compiler and precursor Co-dfns.
As for being read by others, short snippets are definitely fine. Taking some from the last week or so in the APL Farm, {⍵÷⍨+/|-/¯9 ¯11+.○?2⍵2⍴0} and {(⍸⍣¯1+\⎕IO,⍺)⊂[⎕IO]⍵} seemed to be easily understood. Forum links at [4]; the APL Orchard is viewable without signup and tends to have a lot of code discussion. There are APL codebases with many programmers, but they tend to be very verbose with long names. Something like the YAML parser here with no comments and single-letter names would be hard to get into. I can recognize, say, that c⌿¨⍨←(∨⍀∧∨⍀U⊖)∘(~⊢∊LF⍪WS⍨)¨c trims leading and trailing whitespace from each string in a few seconds, but in other places there are a lot of magic numbers so I get the "what" but not the "why". Eh, as I look over it things are starting to make sense, could probably get through this in an hour or so. But a lot of APLers don't have experience with the patterns used here.
[0] https://github.com/Co-dfns/Co-dfns
[1] https://github.com/mlochbaum/BQN/blob/master/src/c.bqn
[2] https://github.com/mlochbaum/Singeli/blob/master/singeli.bqn
[3] https://mlochbaum.github.io/BQN/implementation/codfns.html
[4] https://aplwiki.com/wiki/Chat_rooms_and_forums
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HVM updates: simplifications, finally runs on GPUs, 80x speedup on RTX 4090
This always seemed like a very interesting project; we need to get to the point where, if things can run in parallel, they must run in parallel to make software more efficient on modern cpu/gpu.
It won't attract funds, I guess, but it would be far more trivial to make this work with an APL or a Lisp/Scheme. There already is great research for APL[0] and looking at the syntax of HVM-core it seems it is rather easy to knock up a CL DSL. If only there were more hours in a day.
[0] https://github.com/Co-dfns/Co-dfns
- Co-Dfns
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APL: An Array Oriented Programming Language (2018)
There are many styles of APL, not just due to its long history, but also because APL is somewhat agnostic to architecture paradigms. You can see heavily imperative code with explicit branching all over the place, strongly functional-style with lots of small functions, even object-oriented style.
However, given the aesthetic that you express, I think you might like https://github.com/Co-dfns/Co-dfns/. This is hands-down my favorite kind of APL, in which the data flow literally follows the linear code flow.
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Franz Inc. has moved the whole Allegro CL IDE to a browser-based user interface. Incl. all their Lisp development tools. One can check that out with their Allegro CL Express Edition.
Which is, as far as I know, unused. (Similarly the gpu compiler.)
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What would make you try a new language?
You might be familiar with iKe (grahics), SpecialK (GLSL) and Co-dfns. Also, I am working on bastardized APL for GPU – Fluent. Fluent 1 had backend implemented through Apple Metal Performance Shaders Graph and Fluent 2 has TensorFlowJS backend for now. I care more about having auto differentiation in the lang than running on GPU and do graphics, to be honest.
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APL9 from Outer Space
Not that I am aware of. I think the closest project is co-dfns[1] which is being developed by Aaron Hsu (he did a presentation as well). It aims to compile a subset of APL so that it can be executed on GPUs for instance, possibly with other backends. I imagine an XLA backend could be possible there.
[1] https://github.com/Co-dfns/Co-dfns
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Who is researching array languages these days?
Aaron hsu did his dissertation on this topic (compiler, thesis), at indiana university in the us.
- Researchers Develop Transistor-Free Compute-in-Memory Architecture
lobster
- The Lobster Programming Language
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The Neat Programming Language
I think lobster does this.
"Compile time reference counting / lifetime analysis / borrow checker."[1]
"Reference Counting with cycle detection at exit, 95% of reference count ops removed at compile time thanks to lifetime analysis."[1]
[1] https://strlen.com/lobster/
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Why does Rust need humans to tell it how long a variable’s lifetime is?
There is another language, Lobster, that uses lifetime analysis like Rust, but IIUC infers lifetimes completely automatically. It looks like the idea is still experimental - I'm interested to see how it goes.
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What are some must have built-in modules in your opinion/experience?
I think the ability to open a window and do graphical stuff is actually pretty underrated in core language functionality. There's a few game-oriented programming languages like Lobster that put windowing and graphics in the core language functionality, and I think it's pretty neat. The biggest downside is that it's a lot to bite off, because you'll probably want to have standardized API functionality for a whole host of things like font rendering, image loading, etc.
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Minetest: An open source voxel game engine
The actual game itself, yes. Based on this open source project though which provides the language its written in and core engine tech: https://github.com/aardappel/lobster
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Plane - FOSS and self-hosted JIRA replacement. This new project has been useful for many folks, sharing it here too.
I'm keeping an eye on Lobster though. It fixes most of Python's problems. It's way faster, has proper static typing, the import system is sane, etc.
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Using a borrow checker to track mutable refs in a GCed FP language?
Lobster (https://strlen.com/lobster/) appears to at least do lifetime analysis to reduce refcounting. I'm not sure about automatic interior mutability. I feel like there's a keyword here that can help find other compilers with similar features.
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What would make you try a new language?
Also, can I introduce you to https://strlen.com/lobster/, a garbage collected language made for game development by (and primarily for) the one and only Wouter "aardappel" van Oortmerssen?
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In a custom typed imperative programming language, what should the compiler do next, after resolving variable references?
I would like to make it work to some degree like Rust with a borrow checker, and have optional static typing (with type inference wherever it can). Other sources of inspiration, lobster lang, and dart. It is going to (eventually...) compile to several places like dart (browser, iOS, android, linux, etc.). After I've created the AST, I've gone straight to code generation, because that's the easy part IME. But now have to insert the "middle" and do typechecking/borrowchecking/inference/other checking. This is for an imperative-style language.
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Features you've removed from your lang? Why did you put them in, why did you take them out?
Over the ~12 years of Lobster (https://strlen.com/lobster/) 's existence, features that were removed (in this order): * Lexical scoping. * Icon style backtracking. * Small-talk like syntax. * Dynamic Typing. * Multimethods. * Frame based state (like FRP). * Co-routines.
What are some alternatives?
BQN - An APL-like programming language. Self-hosted!
cakelisp - Metaprogrammable, hot-reloadable, no-GC language for high perf programs (especially games), with seamless C/C++ interop
chibicc - A small C compiler
treesheets - TreeSheets : Free Form Data Organizer (see strlen.com/treesheets)
tigerbeetle - A distributed financial accounting database designed for mission critical safety and performance. [Moved to: https://github.com/tigerbeetledb/tigerbeetle]
language-ext - C# functional language extensions - a base class library for functional programming
ngn-apl - An APL interpreter written in JavaScript. Runs in a browser or NodeJS.
mun - Source code for the Mun language and runtime.
uemacs - Random version of microemacs with my private modificatons
swift - The Swift Programming Language
april - The APL programming language (a subset thereof) compiling to Common Lisp.
cligen - Nim library to infer/generate command-line-interfaces / option / argument parsing; Docs at