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https://github.com/vasyop/mono

A language for learning
https://github.com/vasyop/mono

begginers data-structures heap interpreted-programming-language learning pointers stack

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A language for learning

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README 

        
# Demo [here](https://vasyop.github.io/mono).

*hit F10...*



# I have no programming knowledge!



- You are in the right place! Tutorial coming soon...



# What is it?



- A language with debugger, editor, and heap vizualizer, made for teaching fudamental programming concepts: statements, functions, stack, heap, pointers, data structures.

- C teaches you how things work, but you don't have to learn C. Mono is a simpler, friendlier, but still powerful way to learn, without ever leaving the browser (chrome, and firefox with some pain, for now).

- Inspired by http://www.pythontutor.com/, https://schweigi.github.io/assembler-simulator/ and https://github.com/NeilFraser/JS-Interpreter.



# What do the tools do?



## Editor

- Common text editor shortcuts: go to definition, renaming, highlighting variable under cursor everywhere in scope, etc... see the full shortcut list.

- Prettifier.

- Syntax highlighting.

- Auto closing brackets & indentation.

## Debugger

- Step over, into, continue, stop.

- Change variables while debugging (supports any expression).

## Heap vizualizer

- Drag & zoom.

- Will start from each local variable in the top stackframe and recursively draw a tree as it finds pointers. See the demo. So it shows only the addressed that can be read starting from the top stackframe.



# What's the language like?



## The good



- Like C, but with only one type, number (int), and arrays and strings built on top.

- Arrays (but, only on the heap). When you write [1,2,3] a number is returned as an address and you get the first element with a[0]. Effectively pointers, but only to arrays.

- someArray[-1] gets you the last index, and someArray[len(someArray)] get you the first, etc.

- String literals are equivalent to an array initializer that contains the ASCII code.

- Pointers to functions and lambdas. 

- Closures.

- A handful of native functions: push,len,readLine,print,printa(treats the argument as an array address),prints(just like print)

- A tiny standard library inspired from js: map,reduce,concat...



## The bad



- No enum, union, do-while, switch.

- No garbage collection and no method to free memory either (subject to change). Don't try to do a big for loop with an array initialization inside.

- Very, very slow. Probably you won't get out of memory because you'll get bored earlier. (Plan on writing a VM instead of a the current, slow AST walker).

- L-value expresions are a bit broken for now, you can only do identifier followed by optional indexing operators and one optional paranthesis at the end. See /lang/grammar .

- Expressions don't behave exactly as they usually do ( '0 && callSomeFunction()' will actually call it).



## The ugly

- No `.` operator / no structs. There's only one data type and arrays will do. I admit you get tired of node[0] instead of node.left after a while.



# Dependencies



- The awesome HyperApp, no JSX, all vanilla ES6.

- vis.js (for the heap vizualizer).

- Yup, that's it.



# Full shortcut list



## Debugger

- f7: stop

- f8: run/continue

- f10: step over

- f11: step into



## Quality of life

- f2: rename

- ctrl + f12: go to refinition

- alt + f: preffify

- ctrl+g: go to line

- ctrl+l: delete line



## Basic

- ctrl+z, ctrl+y: undo/redo

- arrows (+ shift) + home/end: navgiationA language with debugger, editor, and heap vizualizer, made for teaching fudamental programming concepts without having to go through something like C. 

- ctrl+a, ctrl+c, ctrl+x, ctrl+v: copy-paste stuff