I spent the last few days implementing a 'byte' type in Mu.

For the most part, Mu is exclusively 32-bit. No long/short nonsense here. However, I do like strings. Eventually even UTF-8 strings. So, minimal byte support. Mostly they behave like 32-bit values. You can't store them on the stack. (Because x86 reasons.)

As a test, I built a little calculator app: http://akkartik.github.io/mu/html/linux/apps/arith.mu.html. This app also shows off multiple return values.

Read more: https://github.com/akkartik/mu

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Why do programming languages require us to specify what modules we use? I think that stuff is easy to deduce. Even in machine code.

https://archive.org/details/akkartik-2min-2020-06-07

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My text-mode paginator for text files implemented all the way up from machine code now supports a tiny subset of Markdown syntax.

The code is terribly ugly, and there are zero tests. But it did help flush out three bugs in Mu. Next steps:

• Build out the compiler checks I missed the most.
• Implement a fake screen and keyboard so I can write tests for this app.
• Throw the app away and redo it right.

(Background. Repo.)

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It's amazing how much you can do layout-wise with just plain text. Pictured in this toot:

Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

Poems by e e cummings (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._E._Cummings)

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A new day, a new app

A text-mode paginator for text files. Think `more`, but no ncurses, no termbox, no libc, just Linux syscalls.

2-minute demo video:
https://archive.org/details/akkartik-2min-2020-05-29

App sources

Repo

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I'm starting to build some simple apps in Mu, my memory-safe language that translates 1:1 to machine code.

Today I built a program to print a file to screen:
http://akkartik.github.io/mu/html/linux/apps/print-file.mu.html

Experience report

Also:

• I fixed a bug in the process
• I wished I already had clobbered-variable warnings.
• I wished I had type checks.

All in all, this language isn't ready for others yet. I'm constantly inspecting the code generated by the translator.

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Tired: a chicken is just an egg's way of making another egg.

Wired: the Game of Life is just a glider's way of getting around.

Inspired: the rules of Conway's Game of Life are just the square root of a glider's way to achieve a 90°-rotation-then-flip.

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I'm back from a death march.

Mu is a safe language built in machine code, translating almost 1:1 to machine code. A key check is for use-after-free errors, using a second address type ("Bicycles for the mind have to be see-through", section 4.4)

I spent the last 2 months switching all of Mu's implementation to this scheme. It was a tough time. But now I know it works (with 10-15% slowdown), and Mu functions calling low-level libraries should behave unsurprisingly.

https://github.com/akkartik/mu

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Mu: the movie

https://archive.org/details/akkartik-2min-2020-04-20 (2 mins)

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I went through an intensive Forth phase a couple of years ago before embarking on SubX, but somehow missed this Chuck Moore talk at Strange Loop:

https://www.infoq.com/presentations/power-144-chip

I watched it today at 1.5x, and it still took me 2 hours to watch. I had to pause every couple of seconds to digest what I'd just heard. Fascinating.

Forth chips focus on power, and therefore tiny memories. It's a powerful justification for remaining in the nostalgic console aesthetic of the 80s.

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