Bob Nystrom
96a829fc8f
Replace the hand-rolled capacity/count/elements fields in ObjList with a ValueBuffer struct, and update Compiler to use a ValueBuffer for its constant pool instead of an ObjList. This eliminates the separate ensureListCapacity and wrenListAdd functions, centralizing buffer growth logic in wrenValueBufferWrite. Adjust all list primitives (add, clear, count, iterate, iteratorValue) and the GC marking path to operate on the embedded ValueBuffer. Add wrenMarkBuffer helper for marking buffer contents during sweep.
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.
IO.print("Hello, world!")
class Wren {
flyTo(city) {
IO.print("Flying to ", city)
}
}
var adjectives = new Fiber {
["small", "clean", "fast"].map {|word| Fiber.yield(word) }
}
while (!adjectives.isDone) IO.print(adjectives.call())
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Wren is small. The codebase is about 5,000 lines. You can skim the whole thing in an afternoon. It's small, but not dense. It is readable and lovingly-commented.
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Wren is fast. A fast single-pass compiler to tight bytecode, and a compact object representation help Wren compete with other dynamic languages.
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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.
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Wren is concurrent. Lightweight fibers are core to the execution model and let you organize your program into an army of communicating coroutines.
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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, give it a try! Even better, you can contribute to Wren itself.
