zcauchemar is an implementation of cauchemar, a stack-based programming language inspired by FORTH but more arcane.
- Emulates the look and feel of a programming language from the 60s to early 70s.
- Lacks variables and registers.
- Single global stack which stores 32-bit signed integers, booleans, and strings.
- No side-effects, can only print values to a terminal.
- No Read-Eval-Print-Loop.
PROGRAM:
"Hello, world!" PRINT ; Display "Hello, world!"
16 32 + 4 2 * / ; Calculate (16 + 32) / (4 * 2)
DUP PRINT ; Print the result
DUP 6 EQUALS ASSERT ; Validate the result
PLUS-FORTY-TWO ; Call routine "PLUS-FORTY-TWO"
DUP 50 GREATER-THAN ; Check if the result is greater than 50
IF "This is wrong" PRINT
ELSE "This is right" PRINT
THEN
DUP ; We'll use this thrice
COUNTING-DOWN-NAIVE
COUNTING-DOWN
48 COUNTING-UP
PLUS-FORTY-TWO:
42 + ; Add 42 to the top of the stack
COUNTING-DOWN-NAIVE:
DO DUP PRINT
1 -
DUP 0 GREATER-THAN
WHILE
DROP
COUNTING-DOWN: 0 SWAP TO COUNTING
COUNTING-UP: 0 TO COUNTING
COUNTING: DO PRINT IS-EMPTY NOT WHILE
zcauchemar is the successor to the original implementation in Rust.
- Runtime-allocated Strings
- User input ("Requests")
- General value containers for long-live variables ("Blocks")
- Extensive standard library
- Math routines
- String routines
- Stack manipulation routines
- Terminal IO routines
- Interactive session
- Hopefully runs within the web browser for accessibility
This programming language came from my dreams and it left a mark on me.
I thought it would be funny to make a real.
At the same time, I feel like it's quite interesting to explore a stack-based programming language and roleplay as if we're in some "false-past" of early computing, akin to the world building you find in Zachtronics games.
Today, stack-based computing takes a more background role as they're still widely-used as the basis of many virtual machines for a garden variety of programming languages or computing environments (i.e. WebAssembly, JVM, CPython, CLR).
"Cauchemar" is the French word for "Nightmare" which is the origin of the programming language.
This section is left as an excercise for the reader.
No, that's silly.
I originally wrote Cauchemar as an exercise to learn Rust.
At the end, while I'm happy that I got something nice to show to people, I personally find Rust to be uncomfortable.
While I could spend time writing down the reasons why, I find that to be unproductive since ultimately, this is a personal opinion based on my experience.
If you want a written explanation, see Why Zig When There is Already C++, D, and Rust?.
Either way, I looked for alternatives, found Zig, and did this to learn it.
By the end, I'm met with a new implementation that is 7x faster than the original:
Rust (cargo build -r):
$ hyperfine -N --warmup 24 './target/release/cauchemar ./examples/fib.cauchemar'
Benchmark 1: ./target/release/cauchemar ./examples/fib.cauchemar
Time (mean ± σ): 43.6 ms ± 0.7 ms [User: 42.2 ms, System: 0.7 ms]
Range (min … max): 41.2 ms … 45.6 ms 68 runsZig (zig build -Doptimize=ReleaseSafe):
$ hyperfine -N --warmup 24 './zig-out/bin/zcauchemar ./examples/fib.cauchemar'
Benchmark 1: ./zig-out/bin/zcauchemar ./examples/fib.cauchemar
Time (mean ± σ): 6.0 ms ± 0.3 ms [User: 5.1 ms, System: 0.5 ms]
Range (min … max): 5.6 ms … 7.3 ms 520 runsI acknowledge that my implementation in Rust isn't the best (in fact, I think it's really bad) but for both, it's my first implementation of cauchemar as an exercise to learn the language. In a way, both are my first "Hello, world!" program for both Zig and Rust.
So, as a result, I'm pretty happy with Zig and will continue using it in the forseeable future.