Why Another Language

Why bother creating sink?

(Warning: Rant ahead)

It's Fun!

Creating a language is fun. Once you know the different techniques that go into making a language (lexer, parser, code generator, virtual machine, garbage collector), it's pretty damn fun to create new ones.

Competition is Slim for Embeddable Languages

Most languages are created to solve every problem in the world, which causes the language to become a beast in one form or another.

Languages designed for embedding into host programs are a little more slim:

1. Lua - Overall excellent and one I've used quite a lot, but a few annoyances
   • Starts counting from one
   • Everything is a hash table
   • Variables can be used without declaring them
   • No continue statement
   • API is stack based
   • Syntax is sometimes a bit goofy for my taste
   • They keep adding more crap... I wish they would just stop
2. Squirrel - Popular, haven't really used it
   • Object-oriented
   • Similar hash table to Lua
   • Very C++ like syntax
3. Tcl - Older popular embedding language
   • Syntax is a mess
   • Semantics are a mess

Surely someone could make a lot of complaints about sink too. No language is perfect.

But sink was created to scratch my particular itch.

Need TypeScript + C99 Implementation

Embedding languages typically think of JavaScript as an afterthought, perhaps accomplished via Emscripten or a third-party port.

Having a JavaScript implementation, via TypeScript, is really nice because I can build web applications that use the same language, with the same standard library. That means I can create cross-platform tools for creating resources for my games.

Compile-Time Symbol Table

The idea that a simple variable lookup results in a hash table search is a bit sickening to me.

Sink's symbols (variable names, command names, namespaces) only exist at compile-time. All name resolution happens at compile-time.

Even native commands are stored as 64-bit hashes, so all symbols can be stripped out of the final bytecode.

No Feature Creep

The most annoying thing about other languages is that they keep changing.

Programming languages are foundational technology. Adding a new feature creates a new language. I really wish people would stop changing languages so much.

Once sink hits 1.0, I won't be changing it, with the exception of bug fixes and security issues. If I feel like creating a new language, I will do just that -- and leave sink alone.

Most Features Aren't Worth It

Languages usually wear their features like a badge of honor. One feature that I wear proudly is that sink doesn't have many features.

Classes? Nope. Closures? Nope. Exceptions? Nope. Coroutines? Nope.

Every feature has a real cost:

• Developing and maintaining each feature
• Documenting, teaching, and learning each feature
• Deciding which feature to use when scripting
• Reading someone else's code who uses a feature that you don't typically use

Features are not badges of honor, they are concessions -- we should be apologizing for each feature because they represent a failure to solve a problem with something that already exists.

I've tried very hard to make sink as small as I possibly could, while still having the bare-bone features necessary to accomplish real work.