book Crafting Interpreters programming language compiler

The Lox Language

• Lox syntax is a member of the C family
• "If we wanted something elegant, we'd probably mimic Pascal or Smalltalk."
  • TODO: look at Pascal and Smalltalk
• Lox's scoping is similar to Scheme
• Mix between functional and object oriented paradigms
• Further reading: The next 700 programming languages

Dynamic Typing

• Lox is dynamically typed
• Variables can hold any type of value
  • Different types at different times
• Static type systems are a lot of work to learn and implement

Automatic Memory Management

• To main techniques for managing memory:
  • Reference counting
    • Simpler to implement
  • Tracing garbage collection
    • Further reading: [A Unified Theory of Garbage Collection](https://www.cs.cornell.edu/courses/cs6120/2019fa/blog/unified-theory-gc/#:~:text=Broadly%20speaking%2C%20garbage%20collection%20(GC,of%20explicitly%20freeing%20allocated%20memory.)

Data Types

• Included in Lox:
  • Booleans
  • Numbers
    • Lox only has double-precision floating point
  • Strings
  • Nil
    • nil to distinguish itself from Java or C's null
    • Worth trying to ban if you are building a statically typed language

Expressions

• --> produces a value

Arithmetic

• Operands are subexpressions on either side of the operator
  • When there are two operands we call them binary operators
• Operator types:
  • Infix
    • In-between operands
  • Prefix
    • Operator comes before operands
  • Postfix
    • Operator comes after operands
• Available arithmetic operators:
  • +
  • -
  • /
  • *
• The available operators can only be used on numbers except + which can concatenate strings

Comparison and equality

• Always return a Boolean result
• Available comparison operators:
  • <
  • >
  • <=
  • >=
  • ==
  • !=

Logical Operators

• Available logical operators:
  • !
  • or
  • and
• and and or short-circuit to control flow through a program\

Precedence and grouping

• Operators have the same precedence and associativity as C
• Can use () to group expressions and force precedence

Statements

• --> produces an effect
• A ; denotes the end of a statement
• Can be scoped by wrapping them in {}

Variables

• Declared using var
• Omitting the initializer defaults a variable to nil

Control flow

• Available control flow statements:
  • if
  • while
  • for

Functions

• First class
  • Real values
  • Can get a reference to, store in a variable, etc.
• Looks the same as C
  • eg. makeBreakfast(bacon, eggs, toast)
• Parenthesis are mandatory to call the function
• Defined with the fun keyword
• argument
  • An actual value passed to a function when called
  • A function call has an argument list
  • aka actual parameters
• parameter
  • Variable holding the value of an argument inside the body of a function
  • Function declaration has a parameter list
  • aka formal parameters
• Use return to return a value
  • If a function reaches the end of a block without seeing a return it implicitly returns nil

Closures

• When a function "holds on" to a reference to a variable outside of its block

Classes

• OOP concepts are built into Lox for completeness
  • They are popular and the concepts are widely used
  • Helpful to learn

Classes or prototypes

• Classes
  • Came first
  • Common in C++, Java, C#, etc.
  • Two core concepts:
    • Instances
      • Store state of each object
      • Have a reference to the instance's class
    • Classes
      • Contain methods and inheritance chain
      • Calling a method on an instance looks up the instance's class then calls the method there
• Prototypes
  • Virtually forgotten until JavaScript gained popularity
  • Merge the concepts of instances and classes
    • Classes don't exist
  • Each object may contain state and methods
    • Objects directly inherit from each other ("delegate to")

Instantiation and initialization

• Can freely add properties onto objects
• Can access fields or methods inside an object using this
• Initializer is called automatically when you create an instance of an object
  • init()
  • Params passed to the class are forward to the initializer

Inheritance

• Single inheritance is supported
• A class inherits using the < operator
• class Brunch < Breakfast
  • Brunch is a derived class (subclass)
  • Breakfast is a base class (superclass)
• Every method on a superclass is available on a subclass

The Standard Library

• Functionality implemented directly in the interpreter
• Lox has almost no standard library
  • We have print and clock

Challenges

1. Write some sample Lox programs and run them (you can use the implementations of Lox in my repository). Try to come up with edge case behavior I didn’t specify here. Does it do what you expect? Why or why not?
2. This informal introduction leaves a lot unspecified. List several open questions you have about the language’s syntax and semantics. What do you think the answers should be?
3. Lox is a pretty tiny language. What features do you think it is missing that would make it annoying to use for real programs? (Aside from the standard library, of course.)
   • Concurrency features
   • Ternaries
   • Arrays
   • Maps
   • Bitwise operators