01-07-2023, 02:27 AM
(This post was last modified: 01-07-2023, 02:29 AM by luke.
Edit Reason: typos
)
It's a sensible question to ask, why work on another compiler when we already have one?
I see this largely as a research project. It's never going to be a replacement for QB64 because it doesn't have full backward compatibility with QBasic (the biggest example being that x& and x% aren't allowed as separate variables here), and so I don't expect it to gain much general use. However it's an opportunity to experiment with a different architecture, both in terms of the compiler itself and the runtime libraries. The underlying machine code generator (llvm) has support for Just-In-Time compilation, which I expect to be able to use to add an interactive interpreter mode while reusing most of the parsing and runtime code. It is also possible to target webassembly, which opens interesting possibilities for compiling programs to run in the browser.
I doubt I'll ever be able to catch up to QB64 in terms of command support; at the rate Matt & the team are adding things, they keep getting further away. But that's okay because I'm not trying to be a replacement, just a look at how things could be done.
Also an lbasic hello world program is only 76KB and runs instantly, so I'm pretty happy with that
I see this largely as a research project. It's never going to be a replacement for QB64 because it doesn't have full backward compatibility with QBasic (the biggest example being that x& and x% aren't allowed as separate variables here), and so I don't expect it to gain much general use. However it's an opportunity to experiment with a different architecture, both in terms of the compiler itself and the runtime libraries. The underlying machine code generator (llvm) has support for Just-In-Time compilation, which I expect to be able to use to add an interactive interpreter mode while reusing most of the parsing and runtime code. It is also possible to target webassembly, which opens interesting possibilities for compiling programs to run in the browser.
I doubt I'll ever be able to catch up to QB64 in terms of command support; at the rate Matt & the team are adding things, they keep getting further away. But that's okay because I'm not trying to be a replacement, just a look at how things could be done.
Also an lbasic hello world program is only 76KB and runs instantly, so I'm pretty happy with that