After many, many years of prototypes and generally futzing around with different ideas, I finally have something solid enough to really start building on.
This is Chirp. My idealized programming language: A constraint-based metaprogramming framework for systems-level code.
Two things make its design unusual:
- Chirp code is a script that defines the program to be compiled, using the same machinery for metaprogramming as the code being built.
- It uses a powerful and extensible set-theoretic constraint system in which guarantees are garden-variety values.
State of the Project (v0.1 Tech Preview)
As of this initial release, the dynamic interpreter is solid enough to start messing around with the core ideas:
- There's no standard library yet.
- There's no compilation.
- Heck, static analysis isn't implemented yet either.
But the semantics and syntax work exactly as I envisioned them, and all the foundational pieces are in place to build the rest upon.
Where to start?
At the readme.md ideally.
But if you just want to explore, you can start at motivation.md for the philosophical, or at the user guide for the practical.