bf_jit VS jank

I think writing a brainfuck JIT is a great hobby project for learning x86 assembly and the basics of how jit compilation of bytecode works. I also wrote an x64 jit for brainfuck in c++ ( https://github.com/ccapitalK/bf_jit ) , it's surprising how similar it ended up being architectured to the code written in part 2 of this post. It's moderately fast (runs mandelbrot in about 1.1 seconds, and runs towers of hanoi in about 0.2 seconds).

There's an effort afoot to bring this to the Clojure world, with the lovely name jank: https://jank-lang.org

I also liked that reference since I had not heard of Jank before. It is a work in progress so I just added a calendar entry for 9 months from now to check it out. https://jank-lang.org/

There will be a lot of room for this, once I build out more of the features. In particular, there will be a lot of Clojure libraries which need to gain jank support. Clojure doesn't require "porting", so to speak, since it has a special .cljc file which can use reader conditionals to check the host that it's in (clj, cljs, cljr, jank, etc). So anywhere those libs are using Java interop, we'd need to wrap it to use native interop instead.

On the compiler and tooling itself, I have some open issues here: https://github.com/jank-lang/jank/issues

The vast majority of it is heavy C++ work, though. Outside of that, the biggest gains will come from time spent on packaging, distribution, and testing on various platforms.

And if none of that sounds interesting or applicable, don't worry. Just be sure to join the Slack channel and hang out with us. :)

On the top of using C++ for scripting, and related to the discussion of CERN's ROOT/Cling, I am developing a Clojure dialect on C++/LLVM called jank: https://jank-lang.org/

jank is a true Clojure, meaning you get interactive, REPL-based development and a whole stdlib of persistent, immutable data structures and functions to transform them. But it's also C++, so you can write inline C++ within your jank source, and interpolate jank values within that. You can link with existing native code using LLVM and you can embed jank into your existing native projects to use for scripting.

jank is pre-alpha, right now, and I've only been showing it to Clojure devs so far, but there's a huge audience of C++ devs which may be interested in introducing Clojure to their native code.

jank (https://jank-lang.org/) is a Clojure dialect on LLVM with C++ interop. In this talk, Jeaye will cover jank's use cases, some challenges around building a native Clojure dialect, and some insights about Clojure itself found only by spelunking deep into the Clojure compiler.

I wonder if Jank [1] could be such a Lisp? I haven't played around with it, but I really like the idea and would love to see it get more traction.

[1]: https://jank-lang.org/

This isn't usable yet, but in active development by the author, and looks promising: https://jank-lang.org/

Jank looks pretty legit: https://jank-lang.org/