Notices by Leonard Ritter (lritter@mastodon.gamedev.place), page 3

gen_llvm.cpp is updated, next is globals.cpp. this one implements the C API wrapper around the C++ parts of the compiler and also exports all API symbols to the client context, which looks like below.

these 600+ lines of definitions are all manually maintained, but could be autogenerated from scopes.h alone, which i'll implement now.

#devlog #scopes

de-optimizing Scope objects to speed the refactor along (I have a much better optimization to apply later), and updating related API functions.

#devlog #scopes

and now it's time to eat my own dogfood

#devlog #scopes

refactoring is intensifying

#devlog #scopes

i'm going to remove all the internal "homebrew exception" stuff from our C++ codebase and use C++ exceptions instead, which drastically simplifies a lot of the error handling code. we're already converting exceptions at the boundaries, this would be no different.

honestly i no longer understand why i was so reluctant to use this in the first place. i guess i was afraid C++ exception support would leak into the scopes API but those worries were unfounded.

#devlog #scopes

wrote some great sugar for the boundary so there's virtually no sweat translating exceptions.

first pic is old way, second pic is new way

#devlog #scopes

more refactoring. this is the mother of all refactorings. i will probably never get done.

#devlog #scopes

getting to list.cpp. the existing implementation uses simple cons cells, and while i want to use something else in the future, i'll keep it as it is right now so we're going to get to working state sooner.

what i would like to try in the next list impl is "wide cons cells", conceptually immutable arrays broken into multiple singly-linked pieces.

#devlog #scopes

lists done, platform ABI done. now we get to prover.cpp which is the typechecker, and at 4500 lines a behemoth, compared to other files.

i wrote down a few regexes i used for replacement here, which save me a lot busy work.

#devlog #scopes

still refactoring prover.cpp. for every reported compiler error i see i fix all similar patterns in the file, and yet i am still at line 1703 of 4390 (38%). but through this method, progress should be exponential-- or wait, this pattern matches the one of the sieve of eratosthenes (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sieve_of_Eratosthenes), so progress should follow the distribution of "new problems" in the file (each problem equivalent to a prime). it's interesting to think about

#devlog #scopes

let it be known that i just about now completed the port of prover.cpp

from here on out it's not so much work left.

#devlog #scopes

i'm redoing scope.cpp, implementing the first class lexical scope type that gave the language its name.

The musings on this turned out a little long, so I put them in a separate text instead: https://git.sr.ht/~duangle/texts/tree/master/item/ponder/scope2025.md

#devlog #scopes

did i say 11 sources left? i forgot all the sources in types/*.cpp, so it's 24 sources total. but i did a lot today. 9 sources left.

#devlog #scopes

this compact memoization pattern is now used everywhere we construct canonical objects.

#devlog #scopes #cplusplus

after the refactor, many source files have shrunk down to just one or two functions. looks like i'll have to merge a bunch of files later.

#devlog #scopes

i'm at the last file, 600 lines in. after that it's likely fixing linker errors and readding functions that i forgot.

#devlog #scopes

done with the last file. tomorrow it's linker error fixing time.
#devlog #scopes

@inthehands indeed preposterously oversold. it's one of these things where i'm confident it's not my age that biases me but the lack of quality in the tech. i'm not against the idea of "vibe coding" but i don't see that we're there yet. we ain't there by a long shot.

it probably only exists because a lot of us are lonely, and a simulated companion is still a companion.

my fast music entry for #revision2025

@djlink i heard as an A-lister paul rudd is very expensive which is why they had to slap another $150 on the console price