Lisaac
Paradigm | object-oriented prototype-based |
---|---|
Designed by | Benoît Sonntag |
Developer | Benoît Sonntag & Jérôme Boutet |
First appeared | 2003 |
Stable release | 0.13.1 (Specification) / February 17, 2008 |
Typing discipline | static typing |
Major implementations | |
Lisaac | |
Influenced by | |
Smalltalk, Self, Eiffel |
Lisaac is a statically typed prototype-based language conceived by Benoît Sonntag, in which the Isaac operating system is being written.
The developers of Lisaac also included features such as dynamic inheritance from Self and contract programming from Eiffel. Despite being statically typed, it also shows homoiconic properties. The Lisaac transpiler produces optimized ANSI C code. Compiling results show that it is possible to obtain executables from a high-level prototype-based language that are as fast as C programs.[1][2]
Features
- Communication protection mechanisms
- Hardware facilities
- System interrupt support
- Driver memory mapping
- Despite being compiled, all objects retain their dynamic abilities
Basic syntax
Lisaac is case sensitive. Keywords are capitalized (Section, Header, Public, …), type identifiers are written in upper case letters (INTEGER, BOOLEAN, OBJECT, …), and identifiers denoting variables and slots are written in lower case letters. Objects are composed of slots, which can be data or code. The ':' symbol is used to declare types. Slot names are prefixed with a '+' or '-' symbol to indicate whether the slot is local to an object or shared between objects.
Parentheses are used to delimit lists of semicolon separated statements. Statement lists may have zero, one or more return values. The ':=' symbol is used to bind a slot to a statement or statement list that is executed at the loading/initialization of an object. The '<-' symbol is used to bind a slot to a statement list that is executed on the call of the slot.
Dynamic inheritance
The parent of each object is just a slot that can be assigned as required in the code, for instance:
Section Header - name := DECOD_MPEG2_TO_SCREEN; Section Inherit - videoparent : OBJECT <- ( + result : OBJECT; typ .when 1 then { result := WINDOW;} .when 2 then { result := VIDEO_VGA;} .when 3 then { result := VIDEO_TVOUT;}; result ) Section Public - typ : INTEGER; - decode_stream <- ( putimage decode_to_bitmap; )
Operator redefining
In Lisaac, an operator is a slot and can be redefined. For example overloading the + operator for a NUMERIC object:
- '+' Left 80 other:SELF :SELF <- Self - -other;
Or for a matrix:
- '+' Left 80 other:SELF :SELF <- ( + result : SELF; result := SELF.create count; 1.to tab.count do { i : INTEGER; result.put (item i+other.item i) to i; }; result )
Genericity
Generic objects are supported, for instance:
ARRAY(E), DICTIONARY(KEY,VALUE)
Contract programming
Contract programming using Z notation is provided.
External links
Notes and references
- ↑ "Isaac project benchmarks". Retrieved 2007-07-24.
- ↑ "Computer Language Benchmarks Game". Retrieved 2009-10-16.