Need help with designing a language

What is the purpose of this language? In what context will it be used, and why would someone use it instead of a preexisting language?

Good questions. The purpose of CodeBASIC should be to reflect the low level power of c and the high level language constructs of c++ in a basic form. This should allow for complex projects to be written in a short period of time without the cost of speed or size.

I personally enjoy basic, and c, and I get addicted to C++ OOP, where I spend countless hours in designing a class. I've tried different BASIC dialects with each one having major flaws or having to close of ties to orignial BASIC languages giving bad stigmas to how powerless basic is compared to c/c++ n terms of speed. I do believe the .net and java languages are not a solution but only a bandage to the lower level unrestricted languages. I've notcied a lot of newer languages have adopted BASIC's style of simplicity, but unfortunately at the price of speed.

The idea is to have a language reviewed by peers to get input into it without having to deal with the downfalls in later stages of any development.

*EDIT*

not looking for any geniuses or anything but anybody who has an opinion of what they really like about their current languages and may like to see these things integrated into CodeBASIC.

A few quick questions:
1) What license will the reference implementation of CodeBASIC be released under?
2) What language is the reference implementation written in?
3) Are you using existing lexer/parser generators (e.g. flex/bison) or have you rolled your own?

Quote:

Original post by Motz A few quick questions: 1) What license will the reference implementation of CodeBASIC be released under? 2) What language is the reference implementation written in? 3) Are you using existing lexer/parser generators (e.g. flex/bison) or have you rolled your own?

#1) The language specifications are to be a set of standards, and nothing more. I'm not sure of the license needed for this, I'll definately have to look into this, any suggestions ?

#2) This is competely up to whoever would like to roll their own compiler, but I've looked into creating a front end to gcc which would be a viable option. This would make it very portable. So a CodeBASIC compiler compiler would be a solution, compiling to c code would be the obvious choice.

#3) I've looked at a few lexer/parsers again this is not a big issue at the moment (not as big as the specs of the language), I'm not at home so I can't throw any links up. I have no problem writing a grammar file which will be available for download and discussion. When the language matures and more content is online, then I will post some grammar files for some common parsers. Most grammars share the same syntax and I personally enjoy that end of it.

Whats the point of having c++ with basic syntax ?
i mean, you actually plan on making a whole language from the botom to the top or will you just add an abstraction layer to the c language ?

BP

I'm not sure I understand your first question. Could you elaborate ?

I think you may have misunderstood the intention of CodeBASIC.org, it is a language specification, not a compiler. My opinions of how the compiler should be written are not relevant until the language specs. are nailed down. Although I have my thoughts.

Thanks for the questions.

Making it simple you want to use typical c, c++ fetures with the syntax symilar to basic.

Are you planing to work on this till the end or you just want to make the theory ?

Iam not into language design so my questions may sound quite stupid.
I program in c++ generaly and i know java too so the topic made me just curious.

BP

No the questions don't sound stupid at all ..

Most language syntax are derived from some source which is usually c, and also most things come to logical conclusions that you cannot escape from. IMHO some sort of compatibility with C libs is a must, which has not yet been discussed.

C lacks OOP abilities, among other things.

C++ strengths lie in the fact that it is very flexible, powerful and offers multiple programming paradigms among other things. To be blunt, on the flip side it is ugly, hardly manageable (compared to newer Languages), and unreadable. I would like to stress that these are SOME of the reasons for CodeBASIC, to improve on these things, and not meant to offend anybody.

I'm not sure there is an end in sight, but as far as I go, the language is not dependent on me, but on the community. I plan on sticking to the end, and hope to guide the process at the beginning. Also eventually, I would like to be directly involved in creating a compiler or front end for GCC.

The key is patience, and involvement. Both which I have.

Thanks for the answers.

You might just want to know that there is something like "D" language in development so you might be interested in doing a google search a few times.

I hope this will get somewhere.

OOP is great but you really have to be able to design everything before writing a single line of code. Most people use programming with objects and think of it as OOP, while OOP it is not ;).

well i can read c++ quite ok, the key is to format your code right and to comment every thing you can think of, i usually even add description of lib functions when i use them in the comment above them so that i can make quick modifications without looking into the docs.

BP

Yes I've looked into D, when it was first arriving a long time ago. The compiler was just getting off the ground, and the writeup on the language was an excellent read. I still use it as a reference of sorts.

Yes commenting and formating make a huge difference, I've taught Computer and Information Science so I have good first hand experience of how valuable these things are lol.

Thanks Borys for your comments.