Making Sense of Programming Languages

What if you could treat code as data? Learn how to build custom linters, IDE extensions, or even your own programming language from scratch.

#1about 4 minutes

The value of understanding language internals

Learning how programming languages work is valuable for all developers, enabling the creation of custom linting rules, IDE extensions, and domain-specific languages (DSLs).

#2about 3 minutes

Understanding language grammars and structure

Programming languages are defined by grammars, which are sets of rules that distinguish between regular grammars (predictable, sequential) and context-free grammars (recursive, complex).

#3about 3 minutes

Distinguishing between interpreters and compilers

Languages are not inherently interpreted or compiled; their implementations are, with some systems like V8 using both a compiler and an interpreter.

#4about 3 minutes

Exploring the code processing pipeline

Code is processed through a pipeline that includes scanning (lexing), parsing into an abstract syntax tree (AST), analysis, and finally evaluation by an interpreter or compiler.

#5about 6 minutes

Building a lexer and parser with typescript-parsec

A live demonstration shows how to use typescript-parsec to build a lexer that creates a stream of tokens and a parser that organizes them into an abstract syntax tree (AST).

#6about 3 minutes

Implementing a simple tree-walk interpreter

The interpreter is built as a recursive function that walks the abstract syntax tree (AST), evaluating each node to produce a final result while managing variable scope.

#7about 8 minutes

Extending the language with a custom print syntax

A new print feature using a question mark suffix is added by updating the lexer to recognize the token, the parser to create a new AST node, and the interpreter to handle the new logic.

#8about 1 minute

Conclusion and resources for language development

The talk concludes by sharing the open-source project and providing resources for anyone interested in exploring programming language creation further.