Comments on: On the PIL

By: Let’s build a DSL « I am Zef

Let’s build a DSL « I am Zef — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 15:54:11 +0000

[...] original thought was to use PIL, the universal platform-independent super language, which I would let generate the Objective-C and [...]

By: On the PIL « I am Zef | Neorack Tutorials

On the PIL « I am Zef | Neorack Tutorials — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 07:43:39 +0000

[...] programs written in this language to any other software … Read the original post: On the PIL « I am Zef Share and [...]

By: Emperor

Emperor — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 12:34:29 +0000

Indeed, if you could make haXe one of the backend, you'd get javascript and flash for free.

By: Emperor

Emperor — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 11:34:29 +0000

Indeed, if you could make haXe one of the backend, you'd get javascript and flash for free.

By: Zef Hemel

Zef Hemel — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 00:06:19 +0000

Heh. Yep, long live progress! Although PIL is not really higher-level than Java, just a little bit more abstract. A DSL like WebDSL would fall into that category however, although a language like that also simplifies.

By: Jake

Jake — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 22:40:46 +0000

I feel sorry for anyone who is starting out programming trying to keep track here (like me). You got your assembly, then your low level languages (like C), then your higher object oriented languages (Java/python/etc), and now an even higher language that compiles to different higher-level languages.

And if this takes off, you know at some point there's gonna be a compiler that targets this too...

By: James Hofmann

James Hofmann — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 22:04:41 +0000

Sounds like haXe to me.

By: Allen Smithee

Allen Smithee — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 20:44:25 +0000

Vala is another new language with a similar “old language as a back end” compilation strategy. It's a modified C# dialect that compiles down to straight C, using the GObject system (part of GLib) for OOP.

By: Zef Hemel

Zef Hemel — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 18:49:24 +0000

Good question. pil_println prints prettier representations of certain datatypes than PHP does by default. It uses print_r in case of arrays for example.

By: CorPaul

CorPaul — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 18:07:14 +0000

Looks very cool Zef! Just wondering, why do you use pil_println() in the PHP version, while you use 'native' methods in the Python and Java output?

By: Zef Hemel

Zef Hemel — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 17:24:29 +0000

Thanks!

My plan is to use Objective-C's reference counting feature and essentially derive release and retain calls from assignments and scopes and stuff. But we'll see how it goes.
A C back-end would be difficult because then we need to emulate an entire object system on top of it. It's possible, but not the best option I guess. C++ + a garbage collector would be easier then.

By: Chris Eidhof

Chris Eidhof — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 17:18:21 +0000

This is really cool stuff! I would try to target C and then build an Objective C layer on top of that (it's just a superset anyway). If you target C, you'll have to tackle garbage collection (which you would have to do for objective-c anyway) and you'll support a larger amount of platforms.

Alternatively, you could just ignore garbage collection. Apple has added garbage collection for Objective C 2.0 except for the iPhone, and I think they will add it to Objective-C on the iPhone sometime soon.