q

This is a very early version of a programming language I'm currently working on.

Installation

git clone https://github.com/akyoto/q
cd q
go build

This will produce the q compiler in your current directory.

./q build examples/hello
./examples/hello/hello

Features

• Fast compilation (<1 ms for simple programs)
• Small binaries ("Hello World" is 247 bytes)
• High performance (compete with C and Rust)

Todo

Compiler

• [x] Tokenizer
• [x] Scanner
• [x] Parallel function compiler
• [x] Error messages
• [x] Expression parser
• [x] Function calls
• [x] Infinite loop
• [x] Simple for loops
• [x] Simple if conditions
• [x] Syscalls
• [x] Detect pure functions
• [x] Immutable variables
• [x] Mutable variables via mut
• [x] Variable lifetime tracking
• [x] return values
• [x] import standard packages
• [x] expect for input validation
• [x] ensure for output validation
• [x] Data structures
• [x] Heap allocation
• [x] Type system
• [ ] Type operator: | (User | Error)
• [ ] Stack allocation
• [ ] Hexadecimal, octal and binary literals
• [ ] match keyword
• [ ] import external packages
• [ ] Error handling
• [ ] Cyclic function calls
• [ ] Multi-threading
• [ ] Lock-free data structures
• [ ] Multiple return values
• [ ] Rewrite compiler in Q
• [ ] ...

Optimizations

• [x] Exclude unused functions
• [x] Function call inlining
• [x] Assembly optimization backend
• [x] Disable contracts via -O flag
• [ ] Expression optimization
• [ ] Loop unrolls
• [ ] ...

Linter

• [x] Unused variables
• [x] Unused parameters
• [x] Unused imports
• [x] Unmodified mutable variables
• [x] Unnecessary newlines
• [x] Ineffective assignments
• [ ] ...

Operators

• [x] +, -, *, /
• [x] ==, !=, <, <=, >, >=
• [x] =
• [ ] +=, -=, *=, /=
• [ ] &=, |=
• [ ] <<=, >>=
• [ ] <<, >>
• [ ] &&, ||
• [ ] &, |
• [ ] %
• [ ] ...

Architecture

• [x] x86-64
• [ ] WASM
• [ ] ARM
• [ ] ...

Platform

• [x] Linux
• [ ] Mac
• [ ] Windows
• [ ] ...

Goals

We will implement a new backend with:

• No binary dependencies (not even libc)
• No compiler dependencies (no LLVM, no GCC, ...)

We'll also say goodbye to the following:

• No global state (all mutable variables are local)
• No side effects when importing a package
• No name shadowing, names never change their meaning
• No complicated classes, just simple data structures

Productivity is nice but bugs in your code are not. We'll use:

• Type system (reduce bugs at compile time)
• Linters (reduce bugs at compile time)
• Tests (reduce bugs at test time)
• Contracts (reduce bugs at run time)

Quality of life features:

• Simple dependency management
• Auto-formatter for source code
• User-friendly compiler messages

FAQ

How do I navigate the source code?

• benchmarks contains benchmarks for compilation speed
• build contains the actual compiler source
• cli contains the command line interface
• examples contains a few examples that are also used in tests
• lib contains the standard library

How do I view the produced assembly output?

q build -a
q build --assembly

How can I make a performance optimized build?

q build -O
q build --optimize

This will disable all expect and ensure checks.

How can I see where my compilation time is spent on?

q build -t
q build --time

How do I install it system-wide?

sudo ln -s $PWD/q /usr/local/bin/q

How can I include information about my system in bug reports?

q system

The output should look like this:

Platform:          linux
Architecture:      amd64
Go version:        go1.13.5
Working directory: /home/eduard/projects/akyoto/q
Compiler path:     /home/eduard/projects/akyoto/q/q
Standard library:  /home/eduard/projects/akyoto/q/lib
Last modified:     2019-12-27 11:06:47.841459978 +0900 KST
CPU:               Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-8700 CPU @ 3.20GHz
CPU threads:       12

Which editor can I use to edit Q code?

There is a simple VS Code extension with syntax highlighting.

git clone https://github.com/akyoto/vscode-q ~/.vscode/extensions/vscode-q

Is the syntax final?

Unlikely. There will be changes in the near future.

Which builtin functions are available?

There are currently 2 builtin functions, syscall and print. In the future we'd like to remove print so that syscall becomes the only builtin function.

How do I run the tests?

go test -coverpkg=./...

How do I run the benchmarks?

go test -bench=. ./benchmarks

Is there a community for this project?

There is a Discord channel and a Telegram group for sponsors.

Style

Please take a look at the style guidelines if you'd like to make a pull request.