Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by qwertyuiop924 3536 days ago
Of course. I'm foolish, but not foolish enough to think "easy" compiler/OS equals "easy" webapp. However, I am foolish enough to start any project, although usually not mad enough to finish it once I get an idea of the work involved.

Once again, Oberon looks neat. I am usually not a fan of the Wirthian languages, so I might not enjoy it in the same way I enjoy, say, Python, or Scheme, but it looks interesting.
1 comments
nickpsecurity 3536 days ago
"Of course. I'm foolish, but not foolish enough to think "easy" compiler/OS equals "easy" webapp. However, I am foolish enough to start any project, although usually not mad enough to finish it once I get an idea of the work involved."

You and I are appearing to be more similar than I thought on these kinds of things haha.

"Oberon looks neat. I am usually not a fan of the Wirthian languages, so I might not enjoy it in the same way I enjoy, say, Python, or Scheme, but it looks interesting."

In your case, rebooting PreScheme to do a small OS like Oberon or clone of it might be a better take. There's already books on quickly putting together a Scheme compiler. The PreScheme and VLISP papers are pretty detailed. Include some safety features from Clay (C-like) and Carp (Lisp) with Scheme's macros and simplicity. Mock-up assembly language in it so you can code & test it, too, in Scheme with extraction process to real thing.

That combo seems like it would work better for you plus result in at least one deliverable: a PreScheme implementation for system programming whose code was compiled with GCC or LLVM. You might find that useful over time esp if you made syntax compatible with one of your typical, Scheme implementations to port those libraries over easily. Split it between GC'd code and non-GC'd code like Modula-3 did.

link
qwertyuiop924 3536 days ago
Seems neat. The original PreScheme is part of S48, which seems to be dead.

Speaking of which, I should probably consider doing that project I was thinking of doing for a while: port SCSH to some other scheme implementations which are actually alive.

So yeah, the trick with doing a prescheme project is that I'd first have to build a PreScheme compiler (with added safety, etc.) and then I'd have to build one that can run on bare metal. The former ought to be possible, especially if I'm targeting C or LLVM (some bits might get a bit rough, but most of Scheme is pretty easy to implement). The latter would perhaps be possible, but making use of it would likely require a more in-depth knowledge of the hardware than I currently possess.

You know, I was joking about porting Oberon to the gameboy, but the GBA is a really well-defined piece of hardware with readily available tooling (which I actually have, because you need it for LSDJ), and a good deal less complexity than a modern x86 machine...

Man, why can't I just write videogames, like the normal people?

Well, my current side project is writing a version of the Tafl-inspired board game Thud that you can play over a network, so I guess I'm already doing that...

link
nickpsecurity 3536 days ago
"The former ought to be possible, especially if I'm targeting C or LLVM (some bits might get a bit rough, but most of Scheme is pretty easy to implement)."

That's what they did originally. Should work.

" but the GBA is a really well-defined piece of hardware"

Then do a PreScheme wrapper on it supporting inline or calls to assembly for performance-critical routines. See if you can make the primitives on bottom close to how hardware works for efficiency. The AI research of the 80's indicate it might be able to handle a board game.

link