Saffire introduction

1. Saffire “programming the web since 2013”
3. Saffire Goals • Be a (not the) programming language. • Suitable for web (fastCGI) and command line. • Cool, workable, enjoyable language.
4. History • Decided on learning more about flex / bison. • “Why not write a language instead of a calculator?” • 2 hours later: 2 developers, a github account and domains registered. • Saffire, dutch/english mix of “saphire” (as in: perl / ruby / ...).
5. History • Primarily based on PHP / Python syntax with some ideas from other languages (java, ruby, javascript). • We’re 10-15 years behind, but 10-15 years of traps and pitfalls we can avoid.
6. Technical info • Open source (3-clause BSD license). • Written in C. • Imperative language. • Dynamically and strong typed. • Byte code generation. • Interpreter for now. • JIT (and/or compilation) later.
7. Selling points • Everything is an object. • Even “foo”, 2, /reg?ex*/ and 3.14159265. • UTF-8 out of the box. • No functions, just objects and methods. • Method and operator overloading.
8. Hello world use io; io.print(“hello world”);
9. Variables and such use io; $a = 1; $b = “foo”.length(); // 3 $c = “björk”.length(); // 5! $d = “björk”.bytes().length(); // 6! $e = 1; io.print(“$e equals “,$e);
10. Classes use io; class Foo { const PI = 3.1415; protected property $a = 1; public method ctor() { io.printf(“Constructor called!\n”); } public method dtor() { io.printf(“Destructor called!\n”); } public method Bar() { self.$a++; } } $f = Foo(); io.printf(“PI is %0.3f“, Foo.PI); io.print(“First call: “, $f.bar()); io.print(“Second call: “, $f.bar()); $f.destroy(); // $f is no more
11. Modules use io; use FooFramework as Foo; use BarFramework; $foo = Foo::Framework(); $content = $foo->run(); $req = BarFramework::HTTP::Request(); $req.status = 200; $req.content = $content; $req.out();
12. Operator Overloading use io; class Foo { protected property $a; public method ctor(String $a) { self.$a = $a; } public method ::+(String $b) { return self.$a.concat(“ “, $b); } } $f = Foo(“hello”); $f += “world”; io.printf($f, “\n”);
13. Method Overloading class Foo { public method foo(String $a) { // Do something with a string } public method foo(Numerical $a) { // Do something with a numerical } public method foo($a) { // Any object (not string or numerical) } }
14. Saffire for PHP • FastCGI and CLI only • “compiled” bytecode (*.sfc files) • UTF-8 - strlen(), strpos() etc. • Objects, objects everywhere • Method and operator overloading • There are no arrays (hashmaps & lists) • Multi assignments: $a, $b = 1, 2; • Empty assignments: $a, ,$b = 1, 2, 3;
15. Saffire for PHP • By default returns “self” ($this) (fluent interface) • foreach/else while/else breakelse • try / catch / finally • “ducktyping” and interfacing are supported • Out of the box annotation-reader
16. Saffire for PHP 2.add(3); // return Numerical(5) “foo”.reverse(); // returns String(“oof”)
17. Current Status • Initial scanning / parsing done (flex/bison). Might change to lemon. • Language specification on its way. • Still figuring out problems. • Abstract Syntax Trees (AST) can be generated. • Initial object module engine created (heavily based on Python’s) • Initial bytecode generator
18. $./saffire test.sf --dot test.dot
20. What’s next A)Get “something” running fast, but poor. B) Do things properly but takes (much) more time. C)All of the above...
21. What’s next • Finish the language specification. • Implementation specification • Bytecode optimization phase (?) • Create the interpreter. • Create a more stable lex / parse system (pureparser / lemon) • ??? • Profit
22. (Un)Stable release? • Depends on the help! • 0.01 not until somewhere (late) 2013. • Roadmap hasn’t been created. • First (dutch) meetup: 26 october 2012
23. We need YOU... • C programmers, but many, many others for websites, documentation, language specification, testing/QA, app writers, framework writers, evangelists, etc, etc.. • USERBASE! • If you can read this, you can help us!
24. Find us! • IRC: freenode.org #saffire • mailinglist: https://groups.google.com/group/ saffire-internals • website: http://saffire-lang.org • github: https://github.com/saffire/saffire • twitter: @saffire-lang
25. io.print(“Thank you!”);