Bob Nystrom 19fc5e7534 feat: always wrap functions in closures to simplify VM and improve invocation performance
Simplify the VM by ensuring all called objects are closures, removing the need for runtime checks between bare functions and closures. This eliminates the `IS_FN`/`IS_CLOSURE` branching in `validateFn`, `checkArity`, `bindMethod`, and `wrenNewFiber`, and changes `CallFrame.fn` from `Obj*` to `ObjClosure*`. The compiler now emits `CODE_CLOSURE` for all function declarations, even those without upvalues, trading a small allocation cost at declaration time for faster and more uniform invocation. Benchmarks show performance is neutral to slightly improved across all tested workloads.
2016-03-26 21:00:17 +00:00

Wren is a small, fast, class-based concurrent scripting language

Think Smalltalk in a Lua-sized package with a dash of Erlang and wrapped up in a familiar, modern syntax.

System.print("Hello, world!")

class Wren {
  flyTo(city) {
    System.print("Flying to %(city)")
  }
}

var adjectives = Fiber.new {
  ["small", "clean", "fast"].each {|word| Fiber.yield(word) }
}

while (!adjectives.isDone) System.print(adjectives.call())
  • Wren is small. The VM implementation is under 4,000 semicolons. You can skim the whole thing in an afternoon. It's small, but not dense. It is readable and lovingly-commented.

  • Wren is fast. A fast single-pass compiler to tight bytecode, and a compact object representation help Wren compete with other dynamic languages.

  • Wren is class-based. There are lots of scripting languages out there, but many have unusual or non-existent object models. Wren places classes front and center.

  • Wren is concurrent. Lightweight fibers are core to the execution model and let you organize your program into an army of communicating coroutines.

  • Wren is a scripting language. Wren is intended for embedding in applications. It has no dependencies, a small standard library, and an easy-to-use C API. It compiles cleanly as C99, C++98 or anything later.

If you like the sound of this, let's get started. You can even try it in your browser! Excited? Well, come on and get involved!

Build Status

S
Description
Highly customized version of the wren programming language. It has all the modules that you would expect in a std library including http, websockets, sqlite3 and jinja-like templating engine. The idea is to make it suitable for web development.
Readme
22 MiB
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