guibrandt/mypl

My programming language. For training purposes.

MyPL

This is a programming language.

Q&A

But why?

Why not?

In all seriousness now, I really like the idea of creating a programming language from scratch. Philosophically, I think it is kind of beautiful how a full-fledged programming language can be expressed in terms of another programming language alone. This also speaks closely to the principle of turing-completeness, which I find quite interesting.

Additionally, I think it's a very rich experience programming-wise, since creating a compiler is quite a challenging task, and involves so many concepts.

Also, who never wanted to say "I made a programming language"?

Does this language work?

Probably, yeah; hope so at least. I'll do my best.

Is it useful, though?

Nah, I don't think so. At least not if you're talking about using it on a product or anything even remotely related.

As an instructional reference, on the other hand, I think this might be of use if you're interested in understanding the inner workings of a compiler.

I mean, sure, you could just look at Ruby's of Python's source code, but (and I speak from experience) this will most likely only serve as a major source of frustration. That's because those languages were made to be used, and tend to prioritize having crazy efficiency, or extensibility, or cute syntax that is just hellish to parse (I'm looking at you Ruby).

But not MyPL. This language prioritizes you, my fellow programmer, and your well being while reading the code and trying to figure out how each piece fits in on the bigger picture. Feel honored.