This is Powerlang, a research vehicle to explore about implementation of programming laguages. While focused on Smalltalk, it aims to be a generic language creation toolkit, something you can use to either evolve Smalltalk, or either build a new language implementation of choice. We provide tools for coding, bootstrapping, compiling, jitting and debugging the implementation.
Bee Smalltalk serves as a reference implementation using the framework. We are implementing an evolution of the classic Smalltalk-80. Something adapted to the new kinds of systems that are common these days: from embedded to servers, with or without a gui, supporting local and remote development. Visit Powerlang docs for documentation and our blog for the latest news.
After cloning the repo, run make to create a pharo bootstrap image. This image will contain all the tools you need to generate your new language.
git clone [email protected]:powerlang/powerlang.git
cd powerlang
make -C bootstrap
Additionaly, you will need the sources of your language, that have to be placed
in bootstrap/specs/<your lang>. Lets say you want to boostrap Bee Smalltalk:
git clone [email protected]:powerlang/bee-dmr.git bootstrap/specs/bee-dmr
echo "bee-dmr" >bootstrap/specs/current
You are ready, you can start working with your language now. To open the development environment just do:
cd bootstrap
./pharo-ui bootstrap.image
You will find everything in Powerlang-* packages
First you have to build the image launcher. For that make sure you have a working C++ compiler and CMake. Everything shall be prepared to allow for either compiling for the current platform or for cross-compiling to others.
For linux from linux do:
cd launcher
cmake -B build
cd build
make
For windows from linux (using mingw64) do:
cd launcher
$ cmake -B build -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=toolchain-mingw64.cmake
cd build
make
For Windows from Windows, you will need a C++ compiler. Instructions here are for
mingw-64 (clang should also be possible). To install mingw64, follow the instructions
here. Make sure to install it
in a path without spaces (like C:/mingw-w64) or you may face errors. Add it to path,
in my case it was C:\mingw-w64\x86_64-8.1.0-posix-seh-rt_v6-rev0\mingw64\bin.
Install CMake and be sure to have its path added too. Then do:
cd launcher
$ cmake -B build -G "MinGW Makefiles"
cd build
make