This language seems quite similar to Scallop [1], which was recently posted to HN [2]. Both are extensions of Datalog to arbitrary semirings, meaning that they generalise assigning merely true or false to relational statements, allowing probabilistic reasoning and more (almost arbitrary tagging of statements). Scallop is further focused on being differentiable and being able to integrate Scallop code into a PyTorch function. Both seem to have quite a bit of work put into them and have JIT compilers (Scallop also has a GPU implementation). I like the sound of "I have further modernized Dyna to support functional programming with lambda closures and embedded domain-specific languages." [3]
I'd be fascinated to hear about the author's experience using Clojure for something as complex as a compiler. Was the lack of types an issue? Or was the simplicity and flexibility of the language worth the tradeoff?
f1shy 1 hours ago [-]
Not author, but I made the experience of writing a compiler, linker and assembler for a little programable ASIC.
We did it in CL, because we had only 1 month. The big advantage of a lisp for a compiler, is that you don’t need to make a parser: if you accept to follow lisp syntax, you can reuse the reader.
For making the linker is helped to have all in structs and lists structures. Each compiled piece of code was a list with actual binary code, where it had prepended the information as symbol name, pointers to where to change for relocation, etc.
The dynamic typing (sorry if I’m pedantic, but lisp is typed, even strong typed, but dynamic) played in favor. As a matter of fact, after we did 90% of the work we decided to change the type of some parts of the structures, it was almost no work. Had it been a static typed language, it would had been a MAJOR rewrite.
The fact that CL can also be static typed helped with performance, as for some thing we forced long int.
binary132 5 hours ago [-]
I believe lisps are commonly thought of as being good for writing compilers, and Clojure has more features than your average lisp.
aeonik 8 hours ago [-]
I just finished a bit of spelunking in the Clojure Repo of Dyna3, and I got the distinct feeling that I had just stumbled upon an alien artifact from the future.
Would this be useful in a production system today?
matthewfl 8 hours ago [-]
The focus of this work was a research project. IMO, a mature system would require a several more person years of work. However, there is nothing stopping you from using it in a production system if you find it useful (there is a python, clojure, and java api).
https://matthewfl.com/phd
https://matthewfl.com/papers/mfl-dissertation.pdf
https://github.com/argolab/dyna3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXRvba2yjY0
Going to try it out.
[1] https://www.scallop-lang.org/
[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43443640
[3] https://matthewfl.com/research#phd
There are some epic looking Clojure namespaces here, e.g. this JIT compiler https://github.com/argolab/dyna3/blob/master/src/clojure/dyn...
We did it in CL, because we had only 1 month. The big advantage of a lisp for a compiler, is that you don’t need to make a parser: if you accept to follow lisp syntax, you can reuse the reader.
For making the linker is helped to have all in structs and lists structures. Each compiled piece of code was a list with actual binary code, where it had prepended the information as symbol name, pointers to where to change for relocation, etc.
The dynamic typing (sorry if I’m pedantic, but lisp is typed, even strong typed, but dynamic) played in favor. As a matter of fact, after we did 90% of the work we decided to change the type of some parts of the structures, it was almost no work. Had it been a static typed language, it would had been a MAJOR rewrite.
The fact that CL can also be static typed helped with performance, as for some thing we forced long int.
https://github.com/argolab/dyna3