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I'm looking into a hobby of writing a toy programming language, partly from minor annoyances with other languages, partly so that I can understand what it's like, but mostly just to fool around.

On the off chance that it gets really useful, I don't want it to depend on the run-time of another programming language for programs written in it to run. That is, I want the interpreter / compiler to itself be a program compiled natively into the target OS (language itself may be interpreted / provide a run-time).

Is there any alternative to doing this besides C? What are some advantages / disadvantages or using each?

Clarification 1: I am not intending to go low-level enough to write kernels, filesystems, device drivers, boot loaders. However I would like to be able to manage my own memory.

Clarification 2: Due to a terminology error / misunderstanding, and since I was so used to the C runtime running on various OS's, I said that C does not have a runtime / and or I am not interested in a runtime. A better way to say what I really want is that my programs compile natively into the target (desktop) OS without needing to install additional software from the bootstrapping language.

2.1: if I write the compiler/interpreter in python, I don't want the emitted executables to depend on the python program.

2.2: if I use a compiling step, for instance, to compile the programs using perl, I don't want the emitted executables to depend on a libperl.dll/so.

2.3: the exception is with runtimes is C since the C runtime is usually installed on almost all desktop OS's as many core OS tools depend on it.

madumlao
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    What a great idea! Beautiful. My vote is for C because you're interested in writing a compiler/interpreter, ***not*** a huge load of libraries: that would be interesting, too, but isn't in the scope of what you have in mind, I think. Besides, writing a bunch of libraries is orders of magnitude more work than writing (merely :-) a compiler. – Pete Wilson Apr 18 '11 at 11:10
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    your requirements match pretty much any language that can be compiled to native code... what exactly are you looking for? – Mat Apr 18 '11 at 11:11
  • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compiled_language – pmg Apr 18 '11 at 11:21
  • @Mat, you are right, I forgot that a lot of languages can be made to be compiled. However, I would not like a run-time, and I think a lot of those languages do have a runtime, and that confuses me. For example, I see java there, and basic...? Maybe a better thing to ask for is low level access to memory. – madumlao Apr 18 '11 at 11:32

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You could use any language that has an existing compiler that emits native code without dependencies. C and C++ are pretty good bets because their runtimes are available pretty much everywhere (even more so in C).

One approach in your language build-up that could be well worth trying is this: make your compiler output C (or C++). Then you can use all the existing ecosystem around those languages and their runtimes (linkers, object dumpers, debuggers, etc...), even plan integration with existing code.

Those tools would be useful both for the users of your language, and obviously for yourself while you're experimenting on that toy language.

Once you get to the point where your language is "self-hosted" (i.e. your compiler is written in your own language), you'll be able to start thinking about doing away with the whole C part and write a native code compiler, with its runtime.

Good luck :-)

Also make sure you go look at LLVM. It's a "compiler infrastructure". That is probably the best place to start with these days to implement a new language. The documentation is pretty good, and the tutorials include building a toy language.

Mat
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  • Wow that is a pretty interesting approach, and I didn't think of that! So I could, for example, write a Perl parser that transforms my language into C to be compiled. One issue with that approach though is that I essentially have to think of all structures in terms of "how would I have written this in C?", which I'm not sure would actually be better than the case where I wrote the language in C to begin with. – madumlao Apr 18 '11 at 12:20
  • your compiler will have to be written, in the beginning, with C or perl or whatever you are more comfortable with to start emitting C code. The fact that it is emitting C (or whatever else) is completely irrelevant for your **language**, it's only relevant to your compiler. As you progress, you'll be able to implement more and more stuff in your language directly, that your compiler will translate to C. At some point, you'll be able to write the compiler itself in your language. That's when you can start thinking about writing a native code compiler backend rather than your C backend. – Mat Apr 18 '11 at 12:25
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    One thing I didn't mention: writing a language is **hard**. – Mat Apr 18 '11 at 12:44
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C has a runtime... C++ has a slightly bigger minimal run-time than C. Some implementations of Ada have pragmas allowing to check that some features mandating the use of a run-time aren't used (I wonder if they weren't standardized later, I've stopped to follow Ada standardization in the late 90's), making it perhaps having a minimal run-time of the same compexity as C.

AProgrammer
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  • C doesn't "need" to have a runtime =D. – Hassan Syed Apr 18 '11 at 11:46
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    @madumlao: `printf()`, `getchar()`, and `malloc()` -- just to name a few functions -- are part of the C runtime. A C99 freestanding program can use only features specified in ``, ``, ``, ``, ``, ``, and `` ... and extensions. – pmg Apr 18 '11 at 11:47
  • Thanks for clearing this up - I have been misusing the term "runtime" to mean "a process that behaves as the program and offers x and y features such as garbage collection, memory management to it". Since I am used to the C runtime running as part of the OS, I didn't call the standard libraries a runtime. In the context of this question, I think a better question would be "what programming languages, running on at most the C runtime (already available in most desktop OS's), are good for writing programming languages?" – madumlao Apr 18 '11 at 12:34
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PyPy usses RPython to implement python language. Will this work for you?

Rumple Stiltskin
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  • As well as few others. Few pointers: http://morepypy.blogspot.com/2011/04/tutorial-writing-interpreter-with-pypy.html and http://morepypy.blogspot.com/2011/04/tutorial-part-2-adding-jit.html – fijal Apr 19 '11 at 15:01
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Haxe is written in OCaml, and I think this is a really good language for writing other languages.

http://haxe.org/

http://caml.inria.fr/

Gama11
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nkint
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If your going to write bootloaders and kernels then C is your language, otherwise it doesn't matter what language you use to develop your language. Just because your host language has a runtime doesn't automatically mean your target language must have one.

But ofcourse toy languages need a runtime, for example a JVM/LLVM/.NET CLR. Or interpreters. If you don't go for these choices you need to generate machine code that conforms to a ABI, and that is very painfull.

I suggest you look target llvm and generate machine code from there, dalvik might also fit your needs (since it is extremely lightweight).

Hassan Syed
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    Hi! Im not that interested in writing kernels and bootloaders, but I'd like to be able to define how much memory my languages default structures use and program a garbage collector. – madumlao Apr 18 '11 at 12:25
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I think Python is best for you. Python is a programming language that you can work more quickly and integrate your systems more effectively. You can learn to use Python and see almost immediate gains in productivity and lower maintenance costs.

Python, recently, has been ported to the Java and .NET virtual machines.

The most important, Python is free.

user714017
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    The question is about languages requiring no runtime. All the languages you mentioned requires not only a runtime, but a whole VM or interpreter. – CodeWarrior Jul 16 '19 at 11:00