vscode-extension-samples VS The-Spiral-Language

changeList: - type: copy from: url: https://github.com/microsoft/vscode-extension-samples.git match: - /l10n-sample output: /l10n-sample to: ./l10n source: git

Trying to follow the your first extension. With javascript, I've also tried this on vscode-minimal-example.

For my extension I wanted an experience similar to the Hashnode AI Editor, so adding commands to the VS Code command palette was not what I was after. What helped me here was the sample extensions directory on GitHub. Their code-actions sample was exactly what I had in mind (and it targets only the markdown files).

Unfortunately I've never used the generator when writing extensions :( However, the extension samples do have several examples (like this one) that have a tsconfig.json and a launch.json that should achieve what you want.

I remember it being difficult to get started. I remember starting by having the autocomplete work with 3 specific words. I think I used this to learn how the lsp works. There are more complicated examples in the root directory https://github.com/microsoft/vscode-extension-samples/tree/main/lsp-sample

VSCode CodeActions Sample

Not true of most compilers.

Can you design compilers that can do this? Sure, i was at IBM when we did visualage, which could do this in other ways, though not optimally.

Is it common? Not a chance.

Your claim that increasingly more modern languages have semantic highlighting in real time is simply false - most cannot real time semantic highlight even a 100k file on every keystroke. There are a very small number which can, and it's mostly by luck - they fall down on larger files because they have no incrementality. Meanwhile, this is trivial with tree-sitter for all languages because of it's optimality. If you want to see it in action - turn on semantic highlighting for vscode and type fast - most of the time you will lose syntax highlighting because things can't keep up. see, e.g., https://github.com/microsoft/vscode-extension-samples/issues...

Again, yes, you could make a compiler for every language which supports a mode that does what tree-sitter does. and people could carefully implement parsers/lexers in each of their favorite compilers and languages that support optimal incremental parsing in them. and then pay the cost of integrating 50 language specific ways of transforming these to work with the editor, basically reinventing what tree-sitter already did right. (As per above, the current semantic token and highlighting support does not resolve this).

You seem to really otherwise be complaining that you believe it does always generate correct parsers. Like I said, that seems totally orthogonal to anything about the speed issue, and if that's your real concern, have at it.

After Googling everywhere for how those little gray bastard are called, here's their name : codeLens and are API of VSCode extensions. An excellent example of how to use them is given here. My first codeLens was to open the file. But then I wanted more! Now my extension can create unit tests file when missing, rename them in the filesystem and code, delete them, generate test template, etc...

Official sample extension (Decorator)

Try Spiral for a functional response to the system level programming demands. It has an F#, C, and a Python backend.

I did the language server for Spiral using Hopac. It involved turning the entirety of what would have been the sequential compilation pipeline into a promise stream.

Sigh, despite using F# for so long, I've always avoided tackling .NET reflection, but I know from experience (of programming in Spiral) that this is a perfect place to introduce these techniques. Type systems like F#'s really hit their limits when it comes to serializing data across platform and language boundaries, so this is The place to demonstrate the use such methods.

But a language that support programming in a staged functional programming style, like my own Spiral would actually be very suitable for gamedev, I think more than C# itself. It has compiler guarantees for a lot of things that F# doesn't, and what in other languages would require metaprogramming is just regular programming in it.

I originally started work on [Spiral](https://github.com/mrakgr/The-Spiral-Language) back in late 2016 because I wanted a functional language in which I could program novel AI hardware that hadn't existed at the time, and still doesn't, but it won't be long before it arrives. It took 3 years of full time work to get it to its current standard of quality, and I'd really feel comfortable programming new hardware devices in my favored functional style. I've designed Spiral so it is both extremely powerful, easy to use while being efficient enough to program devices like GPUs that can't even use heap allocation for their objects.

I am not really concerned about what I'll do when I get access to Tenstorrent chips in six months; my personal needs for the language are met. But I would like it if I could spread the language more broadly, make it useful for people other than myself and get people to sponsor my work on it.

Here is the value proposition of Spiral.

It is a high-level functional PL that has some features that other languages don't, but that isn't really the point. On mainstream devices like the x86 ones there are a lot of programming languages that are good, and it would be tedious to use Spiral to compile to such platforms compared to using such languages directly. It is a bit how ReasonML compiles to JS. Back when I tried it I found using Typescript easier to deal with. So that is not where I'd like to go into, though using Spiral would have benefits in certain areas.

Rather, while reading the [CNX blog](https://www.cnx-software.com/) I realized that while consumer facing AI chips are not here yet, there is a lot of hardware development in the embedded space. They are heterogenous architecture. They have GPU and TPUs in addition to CPUs. And these cross platform interactions within the same system is something that existing languages are really poor at tackling.

If you look at Python or C#, for example, you can't really program the GPU on them directly. They are CPU focused, and don't have the right semantics and would be too inefficient to program devices like GPUs directly. The way I've designed Spiral is that you can program the CPU and the GPU and whatever else from within the same language.

It is not suitable for just GPUs, check this [demo out](https://github.com/mrakgr/PIM-Programming-In-Spiral-UPMEM-Demo). I recently did a backend for UPMEM devices, which are the first commercialized Process-In-Memory chips. I've posted the link to this on HN yesterday and on the Reddit embedded sub, but I got zero interest. And this is really a pity because that map kernel I've demoed is actually a big deal. Back when I first started working on Spiral, it took me 1.5 years of full time work to get to the point where I could write a program like that in the language. And without backend nesting of the kind that Spiral offers, it is impossible to write those kinds of programs no matter how skilled one is as a programmer.

The kind of backend nesting I've demonstrated is not something you can do in F#, Python or any of the languages that I know of. I could easily create such backends for many kinds of hardware. And people would benefit from that because unlike the mainstream computing devices, the hardware coming down the pipeline will have poor language support, nothing on the level of what Spiral offers. For the kinds of heterogeneous architectures I am envisioning, the language designs that are good in the CPU-dominant era, will simply not be suited in the heterogeneous era.

I need chances to demonstrate how good Spiral is, but I am not sure how to get them. If I do not get them, the future of computing will be a lot worse off. I wasn't there when Cuda was incumbent so I missed the boat on that, but I'd like it if Spiral became dominant on future computing devices. Not because I was the one who made the language, but simply because no other design is as suited for them.

I am not shameless enough to plug Spiral in the main post, but if you are a PIM company or an user of them and want better PL support and tooling, get in touch with me. I'd love to get a chance to play with them.

Two months ago I did a ref counted C backend for Spiral so I might as well plug it now. Since then I've gotten tired of 3d art, and decided to just start writing Heaven's Key.

I just happened to notice that Spiral has a C code generator now. Maybe you can just use that since it's designed with staging in mind and avoiding heap allocation.

Spiral

Another term to search for is partial evaluation. An interesting language that by default evaluates everything at compile time is Spiral, developed by someone frequenting this subreddit.