Isidore

Background

Purpose

Every day there is a hip, new programming language. The recent trend for the past 5-10 years has been moving towards more "beautiful" languages like Python and Golang. Isidore attempts to redirect this focus from beautiful code towards clear, readable, maintainable code.

By enforcing code standards and best practices at the compiler level: technical debt for tech companies will decrease, updates and code changes will be easier and bugs will become less frequent and easier to resolve.

Name

The name of the language will most certainly change. The name comes from the story of Isidore of Seville, the "last scholar of the ancient world" for compiling an encyclopedia with works from the Ancient world. Just as this language is attempting to retain some of the constructs of older languages while utilizing modern features.

Development

Process

Every part of the system is built with the OOP principles in mind. The lexer module and ASTTree is built in pure vanilla C++. The code generation module, uses LLVM in C++ to generate LLVM IR and compile JIT.

Building Isidore Programs

Isidore is currently under heavy development and is certainly not complete. The compiler has only been tested on a single Ubuntu machine. Seg-faults and non user friendly error messages may arise if you are not extremely careful.

Dependencies

1. libgc (Tested in GC-8.0.4)
2. LLVM (Tested in LLVM-10)
3. g++ with std C++17 support

How to Build Isidore Programs

1. git clone this repository

2. cd modules/compiler

3. make

4. cd modules/command_util

5. If the folder exec does not exist create it in modules/command_util

6. run make in modules/command_util

7. Setup the environment variables

   1. ISIDORE_PATH="/path_to_isidore_folder/isidore/"

   2. Add modules/command_util/exec to your path

   3. EXAMPLE INSTRUCTIONS

      1. Edit ~/.bashrc

      2. Add export ISIDORE_PATH="/home/owen/Desktop/isidore/"

      3. Add ISIDORE=$ISIDORE_PATH"modules/command_util/exec"

      4. Add PATH=$PATH:$ISIDORE

8. You can now use isidore directly from the command line.

   1. isidore file_name.isd will compile file_name.isd to an object file and create an executable
   2. isidore build file_name.isd will only compiled file_name.isd to an object file
   3. Use isidore build on your non entry program files, files without the main function run()

Plan

The things I am working on in the near future are listed in TODO. I won't be posting what has been accomplished per say as it will take too much time. Documentation is currently in progress and available in the docs folder, examples are also available in the examples folder.

Principles of Isidore

Not all of these principles have been implemented

1. Type inferencing should only be used with similar types at most. Static type definitions are important for clarity.

2. Constructs should be labeled simply, clearly and given unpretentious names.

   • Dynamic arrays should not be called "vectors" they should be called lists

   • push_back() should be append() or insert()

   • You label foreach loops with foreach not for()

3. Curly braces should be used for most if not all blocks to clearly show the start and end of the blocks.

4. Number of built-in, core constructs should be limited. Allows new users and all readers of code to understand code completely without research.

   • One function to output to console

   • One type for dynamic arrays

   • No stupid operators like << or >>

5. Functions should be able to return multiple values, not by pass by reference in parameters.

6. Semicolons should be placed at end of every non block statement to clarify end of statement.

7. Global mutable variables have no use in modern programs.

   • Global constants are acceptable and important for code readibility

8. Raw pointers are dangerous and often improperly used

9. Warnings should be treated as Errors

10. No goto statements ever

11. Language should always remain portable and cross platform