Embed Gravity programming language into your code

creolabs 5 years ago |

Hi all, the author here.

I wanted to create a programming language with the following properties:

- Class-based

- A JS/Swift/Kotlin like syntax

- Bytecode generation

- A clear distinction between front-end and back-end so at runtime, we need only the VM related code to execute the bytecode

- Lightweight and easy embeddable

- Extensible/customizable via bridge API(s) exposed via delegation (no need to hack/modify the code)

jdmoreira 5 years ago | |

I'm in a situation where I need to embed a scripting language in a Swift codebase and had decided for Wren very recently since some form of coroutines are a necessity for me. I understand Gravity also has Fibers.

Would you recommend me to investigate Gravity further?

It's a bit unclear what I would get from Gravity that I don't have in Wren. Maybe a slight different syntax?

jdmoreira 5 years ago |

I'm interested in what it offers compared to Wren. I'm really curious and hopefully the author will see this.

creatornator 5 years ago |

Every now and then Gravity shows up on hn and it always makes me smile--a couple years ago I added some built-in array methods as one of my first forays into compilers and I had a lot of fun with it. Probably my first "real" OSS contribution.

throwaway_pdp09 5 years ago |

@author: Why, given there are tons of good scripting langs already here?

(to other who didn't know what data-driven programming meant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data-driven_programming "In computer programming, data-driven programming is a programming paradigm in which the program statements describe the data to be matched and the processing required [...] Standard examples of data-driven languages are the text-processing languages sed and AWK")

tyingq 5 years ago | |

There's an overview page that does a pretty good job of explaining why. https://marcobambini.github.io/gravity/#/README

throwaway_pdp09 5 years ago | | |

I read it, it says what it is and what it has but doesn't compare itself there to other langs.

tyingq 5 years ago | | |

Embeddable in C and able to work on iOS and Android would cut the list of comparisons down quite a bit.

TCL would be somewhat comparable, various embeddable JS interpreters, lua, etc.

"The compiler and virtual machine combined, add less than 200KB to the executable on a 64 bit system." would make lua perhaps the most obvious alternative. Perhaps they really wanted traditional class based OO.

One of the tutorials for Creo is a good example of what they wanted it for: https://docs.creolabs.com/tutorials/game_tutorial_part1.html