Show HN: Runiq, a little Lisp-inspired language that runs on JavaScript

matthewtoast · on Dec 28, 2015

Runiq is my attempt to tie together a few ideas from Lisp with some features of JavaScript inside an interpreted language. Syntax, flexibility, data-as-code DNA would come from Lisp, while a JS backing could give reach and a big module ecosystem.

Runiq more or less does this translation:

    source: (hack (the) (planet!))
    ast: ["hack", ["the"], ["planet!"]]
    reduce order: "the" "planet!" -> "hack"

Function tokens map to predefined CPS JavaScript functions:

    "hack": function(a,b,cb){...}, // add numbers
    "the": function(cb){...}, // return 1
    "planet!": function(cb){...}, // return 2

Outputs produce new trees that eventually reduce to a value.

    -> ["hack", ["the"], ["planet!"]]
    -> ["hack", 1, 2]
    -> [3]
    -> 3

Runiq is very much an experiment, and some design decisions I made have trade-offs (speed, for one). But Runiq could still find a niche somewhere between grown-up projects like Clojure(Script) and single-purpose languages like PuzzleScript, both of which I admire.

ktt · on Dec 28, 2015

Cool! Reminds me of https://github.com/kanaka/miniMAL

matthewtoast · on Dec 28, 2015

Very cool. It's amazing to me that the developer got it under 1KB.

This is the first I've heard of that project, but based on a quick skim, I can point out a few differences between it and Runiq - although the two are certainly similar in that they execute over a very simple plain-array-based AST. (Clearly miniMAL and Runiq were created with different ultimate aims in mind, so any fair comparison ends there. :) )

- Runiq is fully designed around async. (At first glance I'm unsure how you would express, say, an HTTP request or file I/O in miniMAL - i.e., anything which in JS would require a callback.) In Runiq it would look something like this:

    ; assuming 'print' and 'read-file' are defined in the DSL... ;
    (print (read-file "foo.txt"))

- Runiq execution happens in parallel (taking a cue from functional languages) and the tree can be reduced stepwise; Runiq has a built-in mechanism for pause and resume. It looks like miniMAL executes wholesale, but I may be mistaken.

- Runiq has no (built-in) JavaScript interop, although it would be trivial to add that feature via Runiq's DSL-building API. I specifically avoided adding any type of sytnax to talk to JS directly because I wanted Runiq to be a safe sandbox by default, with the option to add "dangerous" functions easily if need be.

But, that's super cool and I wish I'd come across that earlier!