Braid

A functional language with Reason-like syntax that compiles to Go.

I’m working on a language I’m calling Braid, an ML-like language that compiles to Go. Braid’s syntax is heavily inspired by Reason, itself a more C-like syntax on top of OCaml. So really I’m writing a language that aims to be fairly similar to OCaml in what it can do, but visually a bit closer to Go. I’m not trying to reimplement OCaml or Reason 1:1 on top of Go, but build something sharing many of the same concepts.

I've written some more about it on my Braid dev blog.

Status

Very, very alpha.

Goals

Pair an OCaml-like language with the benefits of the Go platform (speed, concurrency, static binaries, a healthy ecosystem)
Bring powerful FP concepts to Go
Get around Go's lack of generics
Interop with Go code
Ability to use Go stdlib

Non-goals

Performance matching idiomatic Go
Just reimplementing Reason on top of Go

Language overview

Consider anything ticked off to exist in the language, but be barely usable.

Braid supports records and variants:

type Person = {
  name: string,
  age: int64,
}

type Fruit = 
  | Peach
  | Plum
  | Pear

type Option ('a) =
  | Some ('a)
  | None
  
let result = Some("it worked")

Braid attempts to support significant newlines, meaning no ; required — however this is probably broken in a lot of cases right now.

A full example:

module Main

// record type
type Payload = {
  name: string,
  data: string,
}

// go interop - external functions must be annotated
extern func println = "fmt.Println" (s: string) -> ()
extern func printf1 = "fmt.Printf" (s: string, arg1:string) -> ()

/* func to add cheesiness to any two items */
let cheesy = (item, item2) {
  item ++ " and " ++ item2 ++ " with cheese please"
}

let main = {
  // nested functions
  let something = {
    4 + 9
  }
  let a = something()
  let yumPizza = cheesy("pineapple", "bbq sauce")
  println(yumPizza)
  // calling a go function
  printf1("Woo I can print %s\n", "6")
  let b = Payload{name: "greeting", data: "hi"}
  println(b.name)
}

Trying it out

Grab the correct Braid package for your platform from the releases, extract the braid binary, and run it.

./braid filename.bd

This will compile your Braid file to Go and print the resulting Go source code to stdout.

./braid filename.bd > main.go

You can redirect this into a file if you like.

Developing

Requirements

Building

Making sure Go and GB are in your path, clone the Braid repository into a new directory:

git clone https://github.com/joshsharp/braid.git

Enter the new braid directory and fetch the requirements:

cd braid
gb vendor restore

Make sure the vendored dependencies are built (you'll only need to do this once):

cd vendor
gb build all

Use the makefile at src/braid/Makefile to build and run Braid:

cd ../src/braid
make run file=examples/example.bd

FAQ

Will Braid support X?

I don't know yet. I'm open to proposals, provided you help me do the work.

Do you even know what you're doing?

Nope, not at all. I have no formal background in this stuff. Really I'm doing it for fun. I'd love to see it reach maturity, because I want to use it myself. But I'll need a lot of help if it's to get that far.

Contributing

Contribution guidelines

Your help makes Braid better! I welcome pull requests, bug fixes, and issue reports.

Before proposing a change, please first create an issue to discuss your proposal.

License

Licensed under the MIT License.

joshsharp/braid

joshsharp

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