Jul 26, 2020
This looks quite interesting: someone is actually implementing Rob Pike's structural regular expressions.
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Jul 25, 2020
I've been thinking lately about spreadsheets. I don't really use them, but I'm trying to understand why they're so popular. As part of that, here's a rudimentary little demo of what a spreadsheet for trees might look like: https://archive.org/details/akkartik-2min-2020-07-25
No idea yet where I'm going to go with it, but so it goes. I'm now an existence proof that it's possible to build prototypes in not much more than machine code.
https://github.com/akkartik/mu
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Jul 11, 2020
Update on the Mu computer's memory-safe language
Mu now type-checks calls to functions implemented in unsafe SubX machine code. I have to provide signatures explicitly, and they look like this:
http://akkartik.github.io/mu/html/linux/400.mu.html
https://github.com/akkartik/mu
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Jul 6, 2020
Update on the Mu computer's memory-safe language
Since the language is starting to seem stable, and the error messages have been getting better, and I managed to build some little programs without too much trouble, I figured it was time to start actually talking about the Mu language in the documentation. So make way SubX, and yield center-stage to Mu.
https://github.com/akkartik/mu/blob/master/README.md#toolchain
https://github.com/akkartik/mu/blob/master/mu.md
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Jul 1, 2020
I made a fun little demo today using Mu. Fun for me, anyway :)
https://archive.org/details/akkartik-2min-2020-07-01
Mini rant on prototypes. While a prototype like this would possibly be less work to build on say Python, I think building it atop Mu provides some significant advantages. Research prototypes are not entirely throw-away; the goal with them is to accumulate learning even while the codebase churns. Because it relies on so few dependencies, Mu is more robust to bitrot. This makes it easy for someone else to reproduce an experiment. Even relatively far in the future. I really hope we can converge on a shared platform something like this for research prototypes. It does still need graphics and sound, though..
https://github.com/akkartik/mu
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Jun 21, 2020
Update on the Mu computer's memory-safe language
Mu now checks for most variable accesses if the variable is still live, and it's register hasn't been clobbered by some other variable. The extra-burdensome parts of programming in Mu are hopefully now not very burdensome.
Next up: testable syscalls for screen and keyboard. But I might take a break first. My RSI has been acting up.
https://github.com/akkartik/mu
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Jun 18, 2020
Update on the Mu computer's memory-safe language
Mu now checks all function calls.
Pass in the wrong type = error.
Save a result to the wrong type = error.
Save a result to the wrong register = error.
There are automated tests for error messages.
I estimate this change protects against 60% of the most common mistakes. Checking the most recent variable in a register should provide another 20%. And I hopefully have TODOs for the remainder to gradually whack away.
https://github.com/akkartik/mu
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Jun 16, 2020
I spent the last few days implementing a 'byte' type in Mu.
For the most part, Mu is exclusively 32-bit. No long/short nonsense here. However, I do like strings. Eventually even UTF-8 strings. So, minimal byte support. Mostly they behave like 32-bit values. You can't store them on the stack. (Because x86 reasons.)
As a test, I built a little calculator app: http://akkartik.github.io/mu/html/linux/apps/arith.mu.html. This app also shows off multiple return values.
Read more: https://github.com/akkartik/mu
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Jun 7, 2020
Why do programming languages require us to specify what modules we use? I think that stuff is easy to deduce. Even in machine code.
https://archive.org/details/akkartik-2min-2020-06-07
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Jun 6, 2020
My text-mode paginator for text files implemented all the way up from machine code now supports a tiny subset of Markdown syntax.
The code is terribly ugly, and there are zero tests. But it did help flush out three bugs in Mu. Next steps:
- Build out the compiler checks I missed the most.
- Implement a fake screen and keyboard so I can write tests for this app.
- Throw the app away and redo it right.
(Background. Repo.)
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