62 lines
3.9 KiB
Plaintext
62 lines
3.9 KiB
Plaintext
%h2#rubyx-compiles-ruby-to-binary RubyX compiles ruby to binary
|
||
%p
|
||
The previous name was from a time in ancient history, three years ago, in internet time over
|
||
a decade (X years!). From when i thought i was going to build
|
||
a virtual machine. It has been clear for a while that what i am really doing is building a
|
||
compiler. A new thing needs a new name and finally inspiration struck in the form of RubyX.
|
||
%p
|
||
It’s a bit of a shame that both domain and github were taken, but the - versions work well too.
|
||
Renaming of the organization, repositories and changing of domain is now complete. I did not
|
||
rewrite history, so all old posts still refer to salama.
|
||
%p
|
||
What i like about the new name most, is the closeness to ruby, this is after all an implementation
|
||
of ruby. Also the unclarity of what the X is is nice, is it as in X-files, the unknown of the
|
||
maths variable or ala mac, the 10 for a version number? Or the hope of achieving 10 times
|
||
performance as a play on the 3 times performance of ruby 3. It’s a mystery, but it is a ruby
|
||
mystery and that is the main thing.
|
||
%h3#type-system 2. Type system
|
||
%p About the work that has been done, the type system rewrite is probably the biggest.
|
||
%p
|
||
Types are now immutable throughout the system, and the space keeps a list of all unique types.
|
||
Adding, removing, changing type all goes through a hashing process and leads to a unique
|
||
instance, that may have to be created.
|
||
%h3#typedmethod-arguments-and-locals 3. TypedMethod arguments and locals
|
||
%p
|
||
Close on the heal of the type immutability was the change to types as argument and local variable
|
||
descriptors. A type instance is now used to describe the arguments (names and types) uniquely,
|
||
clearing up previous imprecision.
|
||
%p
|
||
Argument and locals type, along with the name of the method describe a method uniquely. Obviously
|
||
the types may not be changed. Methods with different argument types are thus different methods, a
|
||
fact that still has to be coded into the ruby compiler.
|
||
%h3#arguments-and-calling-convention 4. Arguments and calling convention
|
||
%p
|
||
The Message used to carry the arguments, while locals were a separate frame object. An imbalance
|
||
if one thinks about closures, as both have to be decoupled from their activation.
|
||
%p
|
||
Now both arguments and locals are represented as NamedList’s, which are basically just objects.
|
||
The type is transferred from the method to the NamedList instance at call time, so it is available
|
||
at run-time. This makes the whole calling convention easier to understand.
|
||
%h3#parfait-in-ruby 5. Parfait in ruby
|
||
%p
|
||
Parfait is more normal ruby now, specifically we are using instance variables in Parfait again,
|
||
just like in any ruby. When compiling we have to deal with the mapping to indexes, but that’s what
|
||
we have types for, so no problem. The new version simplifies the boot process a little too.
|
||
%p Positioning has been removed from Parfait completely and pushed into the Assembler where it belongs.
|
||
%h3#soml-goodbye 6. SOML goodbye
|
||
%p
|
||
All trances of the soml language have been eradicated. All that is left is an intermediate typed
|
||
tree representation. But the MethodCompiler still generates binary so that’s good.
|
||
Class and method generation capabilities have been removed from that compiler and now live
|
||
one floor up, at the ruby level.
|
||
%h3#ruby-compiler 7. Ruby Compiler
|
||
%p
|
||
Finally work on the ruby compiler has started and after all that ground work is actually quite easy.
|
||
Class statements create classes already. Method definitions extract their argument and local
|
||
variable names, and create their representation as RubyMethod. More to come.
|
||
%p
|
||
All in all almost all of the previous posts todos are done. Next up is the fanning of RubyMethods
|
||
into TypedMethods by instantiating type variations. When compilation of those works, i just need
|
||
to implement the cross function jumps and voila.
|
||
%p Certainly an interesting year ahead.
|