MonkeyScript Roadmap

This document outlines the planned features and improvements for MonkeyScript. Items are organized by priority and expected timeline.

Version 0.1.0 (Current - MVP)

Status: Complete

Core interpreter functionality:

• Lexical analysis with token generation
• Recursive descent parser
• AST construction
• Tree-walking evaluator
• Variable declarations with def
• Arithmetic expressions (+, -, *, /)
• Comparison operators (<, >, ==, !=)
• Boolean literals (true, false)
• If/else conditionals
• While loops
• First-class functions with fn
• Function calls with arguments
• Lexical scoping with environments
• Closures

Version 0.2.0

Focus: Core language completeness and stability

Data Types

• String literals with escape sequences

  def message = "Hello, World!\n";
  

• String concatenation with + operator
• Null/nil type

  def empty = null;
  

Operators

• Modulo operator %
• Logical AND && and OR ||
• Compound assignment operators (+=, -=, *=, /=)
• Increment/decrement (++, --)

Control Flow

• break statement for loops
• continue statement for loops
• return statement for early function exit
• For loops

  for i = 0; i < 10; i = i + 1:
      # body
  end;
  

Error Handling

• Better error messages with line numbers
• Column numbers in error reporting
• Stack traces for runtime errors
• Try/catch exception handling (tentative)

Testing

• Complete test suite for all features
• Syntax tests
• Runtime behavior tests
• Error condition tests
• CI/CD integration

Version 0.3.0

Focus: Data structures and standard library

Collections

• Arrays/Lists

  def numbers = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5];
  def first = numbers[0];
  

• Array methods: push, pop, length, map, filter
• Hash maps/Dictionaries

  def person = {"name": "Alice", "age": 30};
  def name = person["name"];
  

Built-in Functions

• print() - Output to console
• input() - Read from console
• len() - Get length of collections
• type() - Get type of value
• str(), int(), bool() - Type conversions

Standard Library

• Math module (sqrt, pow, abs, etc.)
• String utilities (split, join, trim, etc.)
• File I/O operations
• Date/time utilities

Version 0.4.0

Focus: Advanced features and optimization

Language Features

• Object-oriented programming

  • Classes and inheritance
  • Methods and properties
  • Constructors

  class Person:
      def init(name, age):
          self.name = name;
          self.age = age;
      end;
      
      def greet():
          print("Hello, I'm " + self.name);
      end;
  end;
  

• Modules and imports

  import math;
  def result = math.sqrt(16);
  

• Lambda expressions (shorthand syntax)

  def double = x => x * 2;
  

• Destructuring assignment

  def [a, b, c] = [1, 2, 3];
  

Performance

• Bytecode compilation
• Virtual machine interpreter
• Constant folding optimization
• Dead code elimination
• Basic JIT compilation (exploratory)

Developer Experience

• REPL (Read-Eval-Print Loop)

  monkeyscript --repl
  >>> def x = 5;
  >>> x + 3;
  8
  

• Syntax highlighting definitions
  • VS Code extension
  • TextMate grammar
• Debugger support
  • Breakpoints
  • Step through execution
  • Variable inspection

Version 1.0.0

Focus: Production readiness

Stability

• Comprehensive test coverage (>90%)
• Fuzzing tests for parser
• Memory leak detection
• Performance benchmarks

Documentation

• Complete language reference
• Tutorial series
• API documentation
• Example programs library
• Best practices guide

Tooling

• Package manager
• Build tool
• Linter
• Formatter
• Documentation generator

Interoperability

• C# interop for calling .NET libraries
• Foreign Function Interface (FFI)
• JSON parsing and serialization
• HTTP client capabilities

Research & Exploration

Ideas under consideration for post-1.0:

Advanced Type System

• Optional static typing
• Type inference
• Generics
• Union types

Concurrency

• Async/await
• Coroutines
• Actor model
• Parallel collections

Metaprogramming

• Macros
• Reflection
• Code generation
• AST manipulation

Compilation Targets

• Transpile to JavaScript
• Transpile to C#
• Compile to WebAssembly
• Native code generation

Community Requests

Features requested by the community (vote on GitHub issues):

• Pattern matching
• Tail call optimization
• Unicode support
• Regular expressions
• Operator overloading
• Multiple return values
• Named parameters
• Default parameter values

Contributing to the Roadmap

We welcome input on the roadmap! Here's how you can contribute:

1. Vote on features: React to GitHub issues with 👍
2. Propose features: Open an issue with the feature-request label
3. Discuss priorities: Join discussions in existing issues
4. Help implement: Check out "good first issue" tags

Versioning Strategy

MonkeyScript follows Semantic Versioning:

• Major version (1.0.0): Breaking changes to language syntax or APIs
• Minor version (0.1.0): New features, backward compatible
• Patch version (0.1.1): Bug fixes, backward compatible

Timeline Disclaimer

The timelines provided are estimates and may change based on:

• Community contributions
• Complexity of implementation
• Feedback and testing results
• Resource availability

We prioritize quality and stability over strict adherence to dates.

Questions?

For roadmap-related questions or suggestions:

• Open an issue on GitHub
• Tag it with roadmap label

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Last updated: January 2026