A Kit for Writing Your Own Programming Language

I'm having fun. In the last couple of months, I've carved out about 20 hours of fun playing with some code and tools I found on www.devincook.com. If you're interested in the creation of programming languages, I want to encourage you to to check out that site and the code (link below) that I've derived and organized from code found on that site.

I even tried to share my enthusiasm with the .NET Users Group I like to attend, though as most attendees will confirm, my presentation was ill prepared, disorganized and rambled. Hopefully the 20 or so new attendees at the users group meeting will realize that my presentation is not representative of the excellent presentations the group is use to and will come back.

In the code you can download below, you'll find my first attempt at a language: TROLL — Tyler's Really Obtuse Little Language. It's based on the concepts in the sample SIMPLE interpreter I downloaded from Devin Cook's site under the C# Engines (I recommend Morozov's engine).

Why would anyone want to write their own programming language, you ask. Especially when we have C#, VB.NET, Boo and yes, even Java. Yeah, yeah, there's C++ and D as well, and a hundred others.

So why one more programming language? Because now you can.

It's a great learning experience. You'll learn about BNF, LALR and other fun acronymns. What's more, you may find it an empowering experience to write your own programming language and see your own made-up code executed. You might even find a real use for creating a 4th+ generation language for a specific, vertical solution.

Well, whatever your reason, download the code, download Devin Cook's GOLD Builder and have some fun.

Download code (659KB)