https://github.com/emdash/goof

A toy functional language created through the abuse of C
https://github.com/emdash/goof

Last synced: about 1 month ago
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A toy functional language created through the abuse of C

• Host: GitHub
• URL: https://github.com/emdash/goof
• Owner: emdash
• License: other
• Archived: true
• Created: 2010-09-25T20:34:23.000Z (almost 14 years ago)
• Default Branch: no_commas
• Last Pushed: 2010-09-26T20:43:36.000Z (almost 14 years ago)
• Last Synced: 2024-02-17T10:36:05.634Z (7 months ago)
• Language: C
• Homepage:
• Size: 121 KB
• Stars: 13
• Watchers: 3
• Forks: 1
• Open Issues: 0
• Metadata Files:
  • Readme: README
  • License: COPYING

Awesome Lists containing this project

• awesome-c-preprocessor - emdash/goof - - A toy functional language created through the abuse of C. (C language extensions)

README

        
Copyright (C) 2010 Brandon Lewis

    Introduction

Goof is an experimental functional language with a novel implementation. It is

a library of functions and macros which combine to create the illusion that

you are writing in a high-level language. Despite this, goof programs are C

programs. They are compiled and executed like any other.

Don't be fooled into thinking it's efficient: Goof is essentially a dynamic

language, with the runtime implemented directly in C.

Goof programs are expressed as nested calls to functions and macros. Each

function returns a pointer to an object which implements a language contruct. 

    Known Downsides (or, "Why in God's name are you doing this?")

- I just wrote it over the weekend for fun

- No memory management at present

- Dynamic implementation is probably inefficient

- I am largely ignorant of how concurrency might affect this system

- Possibly difficult to debug, and syntax erros are difficult to resolve due

  to the heavy abuse of preprocessor macros.

    Potential Upsides

Though I acknowledge that this is really a pretty terrible thing to do to an

unsuspecting C programmer, I feel that there might be certain useful features

of this approach that are worth exploring. In addition to the well-known

advantages of functional programming, goof might offer the following:

- educational value

- small implementation

- easy to add new constructs to the language

- easy to inter-operate between C and goof

- requires nothing other than a C compiler (after removing the glib code)

- you potentially mix and match different semantics within the same executable

  (e.g. applicative versus normal order, eager versus strict, allow

  non-deterministic evaluation etc).

    Liscence

Goof is available under LGPL v3