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

phew. five hours later, i've translated *all types* used by Scopes into this format, from which C++ definitions will be derived.

what i like particularly here is that all sub-enums like ICmpKind or TypeKind, and even all error codes, are flattened into the main ValueKind one, but can still be their own enumerator types.

many branch-dependent special cases are now unified this way.

https://hg.sr.ht/~duangle/scopes/browse/src/Value.sx?rev=based

#devlog #scopes

the parser for Value.sx now fully parses the definition file in 455 lines.

https://hg.sr.ht/~duangle/scopes/raw/lib/scopes/compiler/pilot/gencc.sc?rev=based

now we need to generate some actual C++ code.

#devlog #scopes

we have generated some code. instead of generating plain C++ expressions i employ the same technique i did with the scopes² prototype: generate macro expressions and let the preprocessor translate.

left is an impression of what the output looks like (header file). right is the file used to translate it to C definitions. most of it is stubs so the code compiles at all.

#devlog #scopes

in full refactoring flow now, as i replace explicit classes with generated types, turn methods into functions, figure out small extensions to the type generator, etc.

as a result, codebase's getting smaller, which is always a good sign.

#devlog #scopes

lots of refactoring today. codebase is completely shot. changes everywhere. many deletions. into the rabbit hole i go.

#devlog #scopes

voting this the least helpful error message in C++ (it's a bit verbose because i use heavily templated types, and C++ doesn't know when to quit describing nesting structures).

you get this when you use a type for STL hashmaps that's not supported by std::hash. it doesn't actually tell you where you made that mistake. it does in fact tell you nothing useful aside from the type used. you just have to know by experience.

#devlog #scopes

expander.cpp is the first big module to be fully updated, now i'm updating gen_llvm.cpp. it's the mother of all refactorings.

#devlog #scopes

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