parser VS nvim-treesitter

I have mixed feelings on Rust's syntax, especially around generics, lifetimes, and the `modifier -> keyword` syntax (i.e. `async fn` or `pub fn`). For Inko, I wanted something that's easy to parse by hand, and no context specific parsing (e.g. `QUOTE -> something` being the start of a lifetime in one place, but a char literal in another place).

Another motivator for that is that years ago I worked on Rubinius for a while (an implementation of Ruby), and helped out with a parser for Ruby (https://github.com/whitequark/parser). The Ruby developers really liked changing their already impossible syntax in even more impossible ways on a regular basis, making it a real challenge to provide syntax related tools that support multiple Ruby versions. I wanted to avoid making the same mistake with Inko, hence I'm actively trying to keep the syntax as simple as is reasonable.

As for the specific examples:

- `fn async` means your parser only needs to look for `A | B | fn` in a certain scope, instead of `A | B | fn | async fn`. This cuts down the amount of repetition in the parser. An example is found at https://github.com/inko-lang/inko/blob/8f5ad1e56756fe00325a3..., which parses the body of a class definition.

- Skipping parentheses is directly lifted from Ruby, because I really like it. Older versions took this further by also letting you write `function arg1 arg2`, but I got rid of that to make parsing easier. It's especially nice so you can do things like `if foo.bar.baz? { ... }` instead of `if foo().bar().baz?()`, though I suspect opinions will differ on this :)

- Until recently we did in fact use `::` as a namespace separator, but I changed that to `.` to keep things consistent with the call syntax, and because it removes the need for remembering "Oh for namespaces I need to use ::, but for calls .".

- `[T]` for generics is because most editors automatically insert a closing `]` if you type `[`, but not when you type `<`. If they do, then trying to write `10<20` is annoying because you'd end up with `10<>20`. I also just like the way it looks more. The usual ambiguity issues surrounding `<>` (e.g. what leads to `foo::()` in Rust) doesn't apply to Inko, because we don't allow generics in expressions (i.e. `Array[Int].with_capacity(42)` isn't valid syntax) in the first place.

So there was this really awesome gem called parser written by someone not on the core team that gives you a super clean understanding of the Ruby code. Not only does it not care if the parentheses are there or not, but there's a really well structured and precise mapping of where the information comes from and it is completely semantic. So if you've got parentheses or not, it's not gonna make any difference in the structure of your abstract syntax tree, but you can actually ask where are the locations. That is taken care of, but the understanding of the code, what's going on in the code is completely independent of if you wrote those parentheses or not.

Working with those things, possibly with the help of reading books, tends to be how it's learned I'd say. I'm not the one you asked, but I personally worked with Ruby for 10 years, worked on a system to improve coverage reports, which relied on rewriting ruby code. Doing so was done using the Parser gem, which is a ruby parser that has a different abstract syntax tree (https://github.com/whitequark/parser). I'm also interested in programming languages development, so I try to read on this / develop my own language in my free time.

Changes like this have been going on for years. I remember that back when I was still helping out with https://github.com/whitequark/parser, the author on a regular basis had to deal with Ruby making yet more non-trivial syntax changes. IIRC they eventually burned out on the project because of that, but my memory is a bit fuzzy.

This is more a function of Ruby than of tree-sitter. The tree-sitter grammars for other languages are hopefully less inscrutable. For Ruby, we basically just ported whitequark's parser [1] over to tree-sitter's grammar DSL and scanner API.

[1] https://github.com/whitequark/parser

I suggest looking for blog posts about this, you're gunnuh wanna pick out a plugin manager and stuff. It's kind of like a package manager for neovim. You can install everything manually but usually you manually install a plugin manager and it gives you commands to manage the rest of your plugins.

These two plugins are the bare minimum in my view.

https://github.com/nvim-treesitter/nvim-treesitter

Treesitter gives you much better syntax highlighting based on a parser for a given language.

https://github.com/neovim/nvim-lspconfig

This plugin helps you connect to a given language LSP quickly with sensible defaults. You more or less pick your language from here and copy paste a snippet, and then install the relevant LSP:

https://github.com/neovim/nvim-lspconfig/blob/master/doc/ser...

For Python you'll want pylsp. For JavaScript it will depend on what frontend framework you're using, I probably can't help you there.

pylsp itself takes some plugins and you'll probably want them. https://github.com/python-lsp/python-lsp-server

Best of luck! Happy hacking.

It was changed in https://github.com/nvim-treesitter/nvim-treesitter/commit/78b54eb

https://github.com/hrsh7th/nvim-cmp This is an autocompletion engine https://github.com/nvim-treesitter/nvim-treesitter This allows NeoVim to install parsing scripts so NeoVim can do things like code highlighting. https://github.com/williamboman/mason.nvim Not strictly necessary, but allows you to access a repo of LSP, install them, and configure them for without you actively messing about in config files. https://github.com/neovim/nvim-lspconfig Also not strictly necessary, but vastly simplifies LSP setup. https://github.com/williamboman/mason-lspconfig.nvim This lets the above two plugins talk to each other more easily.

vim.opt.rtp:prepend(lazypath) require('lazy').setup({ { "nvim-neorg/neorg", build = ":Neorg sync-parsers", opts = { load = { ["core.defaults"] = {}, -- Loads default behaviour ["core.concealer"] = {}, -- Adds pretty icons to your documents ["core.dirman"] = { -- Manages Neorg workspaces config = { workspaces = { notes = "~/notes", }, defaultworkspace = "notes", }, }, }, }, dependencies = { { "nvim-lua/plenary.nvim", }, { -- YOU ALMOST CERTAINLY WANT A MORE ROBUST nvim-treesitter SETUP -- see https://github.com/nvim-treesitter/nvim-treesitter "nvim-treesitter/nvim-treesitter", opts = { auto_install = true, highlight = { enable = true, additional_vim_regex_highlighting = false, }, }, config = function(,opts) require('nvim-treesitter.configs').setup(opts) end }, { "folke/tokyonight.nvim", config=function(,) vim.cmd.colorscheme "tokyonight-storm" end,}, }, }, }) require 'plugins' ```

Change the compiler to use 'llvm' and install visual studio build tools command line stuff - at least that is what worked for me without problems. If you are using c++ then I would assume you have visual studio installed already. If you need more info follow the treesitter windows support

After a lot of time spent yesterday I took a fresh look today and then thought to myself - what if this is what TS does by design? A few clicks later and I found this https://github.com/nvim-treesitter/nvim-treesitter/issues/1327

I've followed the official guide for nvim-treesitter support on Windows, but I'm having problems making it work. I keep getting a compilation error for any parser I try to install using TSInstall. If instead I use TSInstallSync I don't get errors but the parser is not correctly installed. My setup uses lazyvim and I installed LLVM using winget to have a C compiler.

I have read that gcc in windows doesn't always provide the necessary support for treesitter. I have seen ppl prefer clang over gcc in Windows. Please see also Windows support in treesitter's repo. Unfortunately I cannot help further as I don't use Windows for coding, but hope you can deduce something to solve your problem from the above link (if you haven't already read through it).