By my calculations, this will be the third time we've changed EDL's featureset considerably. In the beginning, I was just going to support GML as laid out in 6.1. Over time, I decided, "fuck that, we need real constructs and language features." Since then, a lot has been changing, even in the world of computer science as a whole. For instance, C++'s feature set has grown sharply with the publishing of the most recent ISO. So basically, I guess we need to start discussing EDL tuneups
before I go ahead and write up the new parser.
Biggest changes proposed:
- Use of C++ struct keyword in plain EDL. Since I started that JS port, which I thought TGMG was running with but I now guess is still my problem, a lot of turbulence erupted in maintaining a useful, cross-compatible language. While the Definitions resource provides excellent extensibility to the C++ version, some elements missing from GML are too basic to require to be defined in their respective languages. What I'm saying is, JavaScript makes it a bitch to define classes unless you understand what exactly a JavaScript class is, and this is likely the case for other languages we may support. The bottom line is, it would be nice if ENIGMA provided a syntactical wrapper for useful basics like structures.
- Rusky is getting his Lambdas. Now that C++ supports Lambdas, I don't see why not to support them in EDL.
- Inline array declaration. EDL is in dire need of some way to put numbers into arrays adequately.
- A more elegant preprocessor system should be available to the users. C has preprocessors that change how your code looks before it compiles. If you've used much EDL at all, you've used them, probably without noticing it. I would like to share that system with users; the issue is, C's are really ugly, and really bulky.
- EDL's understanding of types is getting an overhaul. We will now ensure that complicated expressions don't trip up the compile because ENIGMA can't adequately cast them. With this comes support for ENIGMA's varargs class.
Now, the point of this thread is to present what we want added, get more suggestions for what to add, and also,
to deliberate on how these features will interact when they are added.
For example, how do we want Lambdas to look? How do we want arrays to look? How do we want preprocessors to look?
Originally, my proposal for preprocessors was
[[ifdef BUILD_WINDOWS]]do_something_with_the_registry_or_something()[[endif]].
And, well, most languages use [...] for arrays. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5].
And, C++ uses [] to indicate lambda.
[](int a) { return a + 1; }So, with a good enough parser, no worries, right? Not really; some of these get ambiguous.
What if I want a singleton array of a singleton array of a variable called pragma?
[[pragma]]. Oops. Even if ENIGMA got it right, the highlighter wouldn't, so it'd be ugly as hell. So, do I ask users to simply put spaces between their brackets? I think not. The best option is to use something else for one of them. For example,
[%ifdef BUILD_WINDOWS%]. Since % is a binary operator, any mention of it after a [ or before a ] is invalid. So now, how to distinguish [] as an empty array and [] as a lambda? I think that'll mostly take care of itself, since in a lambda the next token must be ().
With that, here are our current proposals:
C++ structsCan be used in any code that uses the structure individually, declared for the whole object with
local struct, or declared for the whole game with
global struct. The latter will require reparse of the entire game, similar to placing the structure in definitions. As such, it may be dropped or discouraged.
LambdasRusky's proposal for lambdas is to mirror C#'s syntax. mylambda = (x,y) => { x + y }. For simpler expressions, square = x => x*x
Inline ArraysBasically, [] instantiates an array of variants as its own class, including a length member. There would be functions taking Array& as an argument. Var would be able to easily produce an Array& in O(1), and there would be a var::var(Array) constructor. What this means is, you'd be able to do this:
var a = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5];
a = reverse(a);
Array assignOne of MATLAB and other language's brighter ideas, this could be enabled with a special case in the parser:
var a, b, c;
[a, b, c] = get_abc();
Where get_abc(); returns Array.
Some things I'm presently pondering:
1. Can the new parser have the ass to choose between mean(double,double), mean(varargs&), and mean(Array)?
2. Can we scrap Array altogether and just use var, or would a separate array class be more efficient?
So anyway, if you don't like a proposal, if you have a better idea, or if you have something new you would like to see in the language, let us know.
Peace.