tl VS rpi-open-firmware

it's based off MIR, does it have something to do with https://mlir.llvm.org/ ?

for typed lua, there is another effort https://github.com/teal-language/tl in addition to the mentioned typescript approach: https://github.com/andremm/typedlua

I had the pleasure of working with Lua 5.1 back in the late noughties. For me it's replaced Tcl whenever I want something I can configure above a C library. At the time I used it I found it quite nice but I'll also not forget the hours I wasted tracking down nil table corruptions which could have easily been caught by a type checker.

I had some hope that Luau https://luau-lang.org or Teal https://github.com/teal-language/tl would make things better but with the following example

    function foo(x: number): string

I wonder why the author doesn't use Teal [0] - a typed dialect of lua.

[O] https://github.com/teal-language/tl

Check out Teal

There is already https://github.com/teal-language/tl, which is typed Lua. I think fennel exists to serve a different niche-- personally I use it not for any type features; I just like the syntax better, and others may find certain features like the macro system useful.

There's also some languages made to compile straight to Lua: - MoonScript is the most popular Lua wrapper - it's built to be more Python-like, featuring indentation-based scopes, function calls without parentheses, lambda syntax, list comprehension, and much more. - Yuescript is a modern update to MoonScript that adds more features (I haven't used it myself, so I'm not entirely sure exactly how it differs from MS). - Teal is a version of Lua that adds static typing for better code standards.

Terra and Nelua are both very different in goals than Teal. Teal is literally gradual types integrated into Lua keeping as many of Lua's idioms as possible (to a fault[1]). Terra and Nelua are both very metaprogrammable systems programming languages. Nelua's goals are primarily to soften C's rough edges, comparable to something like Nim.

There's another one you missed in Pallene[2]. But again, it's goal was to optimize the stack sharing involved in using the C API. It also adds types though and maintains Lua idioms as much as possible.

[1]: https://github.com/teal-language/tl/discussions/339

[2]: https://github.com/pallene-lang/pallene

Comment by the developer who attempted to create open firmware, https://github.com/christinaa/rpi-open-firmware/issues/37

> a lot of corners were cut to save time leading to what I believe is poor ARMv7+ Cortex IP integration (GIC, TrustZone, etc). So I stopped working on it. If those things were not the case (GIC working, "TZPCs" working, security working as intended, instead of NS forced to high on bridge, at least in my understanding) I would still work on it ...

ARM isn't a second class citizen on this platform, it's a third class citizen since BCM2709 (again this is an opinion) ... the features I wanted to tinker with the most are absent by design (cutting corners) and I'm not willing to resort to SW emulation of them through clever uses of the VPU.

Sure, and it's been done: https://github.com/christinaa/rpi-open-firmware - but that doesn't involve ThreadX source, just some standard reverse engineering work. ThreadX is really the least interesting part of this whole operation in terms of the Raspberry Pi.

It's very cool that ThreadX has been open sourced as it offers an additional battle tested and mature alternative to FreeRTOS for new projects, but in terms of reverse engineering or open sourcing the Raspberry Pi VideoCore blob, it's pretty much a non-event IMO.

I guess you are thinking of this issue:

https://github.com/christinaa/rpi-open-firmware/issues/37

Since then the project moved to a new maintainer (not me), who worked on it slowly but surely. They need new contributors though.

They have (https://github.com/christinaa/rpi-open-firmware). The problem is that almost nothing works (no video or even USB). The sequel to "f you, NVIDIA": f you, Broadcom.

> no clue if there's a project to reimplement that

There was! And it even booted Linux in some capacity: https://github.com/christinaa/rpi-open-firmware

> every chip is very different from one another

Eh, the usual embedded SoCs are not that different from each other — ARM GIC, ARM timer, lots of Synopsys Designware crap for SDMMC/XHCI/PCIe/etc.

For many SoCs it's totally feasible to make standards-compliant firmware, e.g. for the Rockchip RK3566 there is https://github.com/jaredmcneill/quartz64_uefi

And SoCs from the networking world (Marvell, NXP) are typically supported by upstream EDK2.

from 2018: Is this project dead? KB - No not dead but on hold, see my response · Issue #37

https://github.com/christinaa/rpi-open-firmware/issues/37