Goldstein

"You haven't a real appreciation of Newspeak, Winston," he said almost sadly. "Even when you write it you're still thinking in Oldspeak. I've read some of those pieces that you write in The Times occasionally. They're good enough, but they're translations. In your heart you'd prefer to stick to Oldspeak, with all its vagueness and its useless shades of meaning. You don't grasp the beauty of the destruction of words. Do you know that Newspeak is the only language in the world whose vocabulary gets smaller every year?"

(c) “1984”, George Orwell

JavaScript with no limits 🤫.

Language ruled by the users, create an issue with ideas of a new language construction and what is look like in JavaScript, and most likely we implement it :).

Install

npm i goldstein -g

CLI

$ cat > 1.gs
export fn hello() {
    return 'world';
}

$ gs 1.gs
$ cat 1.js
// ~1.js
function hello() {
  return "world";
}
export {
  hello
};

API

import {compile} from 'goldstein';

compile(`
    fn hello() {
        guard text !== "world" else {
            return ""
        }
        
        return "Hello " + text
    }
`);
// returns
`
function hello() {
    if (!(text !== 'world')) {
        return '';
    }
    
    return 'Hello ' + text;
}
`;

Keywords

Goldstein is absolutely compatible with JavaScript, and it has extensions. Here is the list.

fn

You can use fn to declare a function:

fn hello() {
    return 'world';
}

This is the same as:

function hello() {
    return 'world';
}

guard

Applies not to IfCondition:

fn hello() {
    guard text !== "world" else {
        return ""
    }

    return "Hello " + text
}

Is the same as:

function hello() {
    if (!(text !== 'world')) {
        return '';
    }
    
    return 'Hello ' + text;
}

try

try can be used as an expression.

Applies tryCatch:

const [error, result] = try hello(1, 2, 3);

Is the same as:

import tryCatch from 'try-catch';
const [error, result] = tryCatch(1, 2, 3);

and

const [error, result] = try await hello(1, 2, 3);

Is the same as:

import tryToCatch from 'try-catch';
const [error, result] = await tryToCatch(1, 2, 3);

should

should can be used as an expression (just like try). This keyword is useful if you want to prevent a function call (also async) to throw an error because you don't need to have any result and the real execution is just optional (so runs if supported).

should hello()

Is the same as:

try hello();

☝️ Warning: this feature can be helpful but also dangerous especially if you're debugging your application. In fact, this is made to be used as an optional function call (ex. should load content, but not necessary and knowing this feature is optional), if you call a function in this way while debugging, no error will be printed and the application will continue run as nothing happened.

if

You can omit parens. But you must use braces in this case.

if a > 3 {
    hello();
}

throw expression

You can use throw as expression, just like that:

const a = () => throw 'hello';

Curry

Similar to partial application:

const sum = a + b;
const inc = sum~(1);

inc(5);
// returns
6

How to contribute?

Clone the registry, create a new keyword with a prefix keyword-, then create directory fixture and put there two files with extensions .js and .gs. Half way done 🥳!

Then goes test and implementation in index.js and index.spec.js accordingly. Use scripts:

• npm test
• UPDATE=1 npm test - update fixtures;
• AST=1 npm test - log AST;
• npm run coverage;
• npm run fix:lint;

Update docs and make PR, that's it!

License

MIT