adventlang

README

🎅 Adventlang

My blog posts: Designing a Programming Language for Advent of Code and Designing a Code Playground for Adventlang

A strongly typed but highly dynamic programming language interpreter written in Go.

log("Hello, World!");

Try it out in the code playground!

Why

In the second half of November, I designed and implemented this programming language for Advent of Code (AoC). I'll be using it to solve AoC's daily puzzles and adding to the standard library as I go. Will this language make it easier for you to solve the puzzles? No, certainly not. Here be dragons, etc. But it will increase my level of fun as I tap into the joyous energy that comes with forced-creativity-through-restriction.

Getting Started

Look in the tests folder for examples of how to use most language features.

If you're developing, you can use go run and pass a file as an argument. In the root project directory:

go run cmd/adventlang.go tests/__run_tests.adv

An Example Program

// An if statement
if (true) {}

// An assignment expression declaring and setting a variable
// to an Immediately Invoked Function Expression (IIFE)
let result = (func(x) { return x + 1 })(4);

// Implemention of a Set using a closure over a dictionary
// `let my_set = set([]);` or `let items = set([1, 2])`
let set = func(list) {
    let store = {};
    if (type(list) == "list") {
        for (let i = 0; i < len(list); i = i + 1) {
            let key = list[i];
            store[key] = true;
        }
    }
    return {
        "add": func(x) { store[x] = true; },
        "has": func(x) { return store[x] == true }
    }
};

// An example of a computed key
let key = "a";
let f = {key: 2};

// A runtime assert call, used in test programs
assert(f.a, 2);

Build

Build for common platforms:

./build.sh

Run Tests

./run_tests.sh

Experimental features

Run Adventlang programs via WebAssembly.

Try it on https://healeycodes.github.io/adventlang/

On local, you can:

./build_wasm.sh
python docs/dev.py

And then Navigate to http://localhost:8000

Did You Complete AoC2021?

😅 I solved nine and a half puzzles .. and got distracted building out the language, creating a code playground, and writing blog posts.

License

MIT.