nemesys is a just-in-time (JIT) compiler for the Python programming language.
This project is what happens when someone who has never written a compiler or
taken a computer languages or compilers class writes a compiler. The goals of
this project are fun and learning, not necessarily to contribute anything of
value to the world. If you're a student looking for an example of well-designed
compiler, this is not such an example.
See notes/design.md for specifics on how the compiler is implemented and its
various behavioral quirks.
Here's what nemesys does:
- Function calls and control flow statements like if, for, while, etc.
- Fast integer math.
- Floating-point math.
- Strings, lists, and tuples.
- Classes and basic inheritance (no multiple inheritance yet).
- Refcounted garbage collection.
- Custom class destructors (__del__).
- Exceptions.
- Lambdas and non-closure private functions.
- Function polymorphism.
- Dicts, kind of (a lot of features don't work).
Here's what nemesys doesn't do yet, but will in the future:
- Sets.
- Variadic functions.
- Recursion.
- Multiple inheritance.
- Decorators.
- Most built-in functions.
- Generators and coroutines.
- Magic methods on classes (except __init__ and __del__, which are implemented).
Here's what nemesys doesn't do yet, but could in the future:
- Interactive shell interface.
- Closures.
- Return statements inside finally blocks.
- Support the CPython C API.
- Optimize its generated assembly code.
- Build and run on architectures other than AMD64.
Here's what nemesys will probably never be able to do:
- Assign arbitrary attributes to objects after construction time.
- Polymorphic variables within a scope (except to/from None).
- Metaclasses.
- Negative exponents for integer bases. Just do 1/(a**b) instead.
Have fun. If you try this and something doesn't work, feel free to complain at
me unless it's already mentioned in the above lists.
