SCaD

(Systems Control and Development Language)

SCAD is a work-in-progress programming language designed for high-performance computing, enabling low-level control of computer systems. It is engineered to provide maximum control to programmers, offering zero-cost abstractions and eliminating hidden allocations.

Usage

To run an example program:

cargo run <INPUT_NAME>.scad <OUTPUT_EXE_NAME>

Soon it will run as an executable but not yet.

Because SCaD is a cool language, you can also use this as a file extension: 🖥.

cargo run <INPUT_NAME>.🖥️ <OUTPUT_EXE_NAME>

This is just another way that SCaD improves developer experience.

Architecture

1. Conversion from concrete syntax to high level IR
2. HIR to MIR lowering (involves static single assignment transformation)
3. MIR desugaring and optimisation (constant folding etc)
4. OptMIR to typed lambda calculus IR (typing using Hindly Milner)
5. TLCIR to LLVM IR lowering
6. LLVM optimisation

Features

• High Performance: SCaD is designed to deliver high-performance computing capabilities by allowing direct low-level control of system resources.
• Programmer Control: The language prioritises maximum control for programmers, enabling them to manage and manipulate system resources explicitly.
• Zero-Cost Abstractions: SCaD ensures that abstractions do not incur additional costs, meaning developers can create efficient code without sacrificing performance.
• No Hidden Allocations: The language eliminates hidden memory allocations, providing complete transparency and control over memory usage.
• Type system: SCaD uses the Hindly Milner for type inference and checking which will allow for cool features

Key Goals

• Performance-Centric: SCAD focuses on performance optimization and efficiency in system-level programming.
• Low-Level Control: The language aims to give programmers direct control over hardware resources.
• Transparency: All processes and resource management are specified by the programmer, avoiding hidden side-effects that could impact performance.

Roadmap

The planned development roadmap for SCaD includes:

• Type Checking: Improve safety by implementing a type checker.
• Language Specification: Finalize the language syntax, features, and behavior.
• Compiler Development: Build a robust and efficient compiler for the SCAD language (hopefully faster than rustc).
• Performance Eval: Compare the peformance to other well peformaing programming languages.