Note
This project is currently under active development. Nothing here yet: I've only finalized the specification and just started development.
bosse-toolchain is a small-scale learning project written in OCaml, planned to provide:
- Compiler(
bossecc) for a minimal C(Go)-style teaching language - Virtual Machine(
bossevm) to execute the compiled bytecode - Bytecode Disassembler (
bosse-disasm) for inspecting compiled bytecode - AST Visualizer/Dump (
bosse-ast) for debugging parser output - Code Formatter (
bosse-fmt) for enforcing style and readability - Interactive REPL (
bosse-repl) for live code experimentation and learning
I built Bosse as a lean, hands‑on exercise to understand:
- How a C‑style language front‑end (lexer, parser, type checker) flows into
- A simple bytecode representation, and then
- How that bytecode is executed by a minimal VM
By keeping the language spec tiny and splitting compiler and VM, I forced myself to master each phase in isolation—no black‑box magic, no hidden runtime.
Beyond these core components, I also aim to implement a full modern language ecosystem—formatters, analyzers, interactive REPLs—to truly appreciate how challenging it is to build a real programming language from scratch. Although the core language remains small, implementing these complementary tools reveals the true scope and complexity of modern language ecosystems.
Bosse is a minimal C(Go)-style teaching language designed to be simple yet expressive enough for basic algorithms. It includes:
- Scalar types only: 32-bit signed integers and booleans
- Basic control flow:
if...else,while, andreturn - Global functions: simple declarations, no nested scopes or closures
- Single data structure: value‑only arrays (
a[i],len(a)) - Minimal I/O:
print_int,read_intfor CLI programs - Deterministic execution: no exceptions, runtime errors abort with an exit code
- Simple parsing: LL(1)/recursive‑descent grammar—no surprises
This trimmed‑down feature set means you can write algorithms (sorting, recursion, simulations) but nothing more elaborate—exactly by design. Bosse language specification is documented in doc/language_specification.md.
I toyed with “Hump” since OCaml’s mascot is a camel—but discovered “hump” has… other connotations in English slang, so I went with Bosse (French for “hump”) to keep the camel motif while avoiding awkward misunderstandings.
This project is licensed under the MIT License.
When this project is complete, I plan to publish my learnings as a Japanese technical doujinshi. Your support truly motivates me—I'd be very grateful for a GitHub Star or sponsorship at https://github.com/sponsors/nao1215.