Woop

Woop is a programming language and environment that is almost entirely written in itself and is easy to bootstrap. You only need an interpreter for the virtual machine (which can be done in ~150 lines of C), and by loading hand-written bytecode you get a fully functional C-style language with an interactive shell.

More specifically Woop contains:

• WoopVM (vm.c): An untyped, register-based virtual machine with an interpreter written in C. We also provide C macros in order to write bytecode in text format. Bytecode is written in files named something.vm.c and they should not be considered "C files" (have a look for yourself).

• Type system (type.vm.c): A basic, C-style, type system that handles numbers, pointers and structs (with correct alignment and field offsets).

• WoopLang: A typed, C-style language that has higher-level features such as structred control flow, struct fields and functions. It has a stack-based binary representation and once again we provide C macros (cmd.c) in order to write programs without having a parser.

• Compiler (compiler.vm.c): Compiles Woop programs (in their binary representation) into WoopVM bytecode, making it possible to run Woop programs through the WoopVM interpreter.

• Parser (parser.w.c): Parses a file/string into the binary representation of Woop, making it possible to write Woop programs without using C macros.

• Shell (shell.w): Interactive shell that let's you write Woop programs on the command-line.

Status

Woop is currently under development and will be published once there is a working prototype.

Running

You need a C compiler which supports C99.

Build the woop binary:

$ make

Run:

$ ./woop PROGRAM

Run the shell:

$ ./woop src/shell.w

See the examples/ directory for more examples.

Credits

In spirit, Woop is heavily inspired by the Forth language/environment. Forth demonstrated that it is possible to get reasonable high-level, interactive environment with few lines of code by defining a simple, expressive language at the bottom. Woop currently has a higher (implementation) complexity than Forth, but in exchange we get "normal" programming constructs such as functions, variables and blocks.

In implementation, Woop is a result from many years of experimenting with languages, intermediate representations and virtual machines. We're forever grateful to the programming and computer science community which keeps on publishing fascinating ideas.

License

Woop is is available under the 0BSD license:

Copyright (C) 2018 Magnus Holm [email protected]

Permission to use, copy, modify, and/or distribute this software for any purpose with or without fee is hereby granted.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND THE AUTHOR DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES WITH REGARD TO THIS SOFTWARE INCLUDING ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR BE LIABLE FOR ANY SPECIAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OR ANY DAMAGES WHATSOEVER RESULTING FROM LOSS OF USE, DATA OR PROFITS, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, NEGLIGENCE OR OTHER TORTIOUS ACTION, ARISING OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE USE OR PERFORMANCE OF THIS SOFTWARE.