Saffire introduction

An introduction on Saffire - the new programming language

Transcript

1. Saffire
   “programming the web since 2013”
   

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3. Saffire Goals
   • Be a (not the) programming language.
   • Suitable for web (fastCGI) and command
   line.
   • “best of all programming worlds”.
   

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4. History
   • Joshua Thijssen 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 / ...).
   

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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.
   

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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.
   

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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.
   

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8. Hello world
   use io;
   io.print(“hello world”);
   

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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);
   

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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 “, Foo.PI);
    io.printf(“First call: “, $f.bar());
    io.printf(“Second call: “, $f.bar());
    $f.destroy(); // $f is no more
    

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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();
    

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12. Overloading
    use io;
    class Foo {
    protected $a;
    method ctor(String $a) {
    self.$a = $a;
    }
    method ::+(String $b) {
    return self.$a.concat(“ “, $b);
    }
    }
    $f = Foo(“hello”);
    $f += “world”;
    io.printf($f, “\n”);
    

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13. Current Status
    • Initial lexing / parsing done.
    • Language specification on its way.
    • Still figuring out problems.
    • Abstract Syntax Trees (AST) can be
    generated.
    

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14. $./saffire test.sf --dot test.dot
    

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15. What’s next
    • Finish the language specification.
    • Bytecode optimization phase (?)
    • Create the interpreter.
    • Create a more stable lex / parse system.
    • ???
    • Profit
    

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16. Stable release?
    • Depends on the help!
    • Not until somewhere (late) 2013.
    • Roadmap hasn’t been created.
    

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17. 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!
    

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18. 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
    

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