Show HN: Mys – an attempt to create a statically typed Python-like language (opens in new tab)

(github.com)

50 pointseerimoq5y ago56 comments

56 comments

40 comments · 15 top-level

sitkack5y ago· 7 in thread

Given that the OP is the github project owner, are you aware of https://chocopy.org/ ?

You might want to also look at Shedskin, https://github.com/shedskin/shedskin which converts implicitly typed Python programs to C++

viraptor5y ago

And at mypyc https://github.com/python/mypy/tree/master/mypyc

eerimoqOP5y ago

This looks promising indeed. Thanks for sharing.

nerdponx5y ago

For the sake of completeness, might as well mention Nuitka [1] (another Python -> C compiler), Cython (Python-like language that compiles to C), and Numba (LLVM-based JIT compiler for a limited subset of Python).

[1]: http://nuitka.net/

[2]: https://cython.org/

[3]: https://numba.pydata.org/

t-vi5y ago

In the special purpose for computation (like Numba) department, but more general: TorchScript from PyTorch https://pytorch.org/docs/stable/jit_language_reference.html#...

It doesn't compile to C but to an IR, but some ideas around typing might be similar.

sitkack5y ago

Previous discussion of ChocoPy is here, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20957420

eerimoqOP5y ago

No, I am not aware of ChocoPy. Thanks for letting me know.

Shedskin uses the Python interpreter if I remember correctly. I aim not to.

sitkack5y ago

It can make both standalone executables as well as extension modules that can be loaded into cpython2.7

pmoriarty5y ago· 5 in thread

Strongly typed? You mean statically typed?

See "What to know before debating type systems":

http://blogs.perl.org/users/ovid/2010/08/what-to-know-before...

azhenley5y ago

> Type inference is generally a big win.

I see this claimed a lot, but haven’t seen any evidence.

aw16211075y ago

Might depend on what "win" is supposed to mean in this context. If it's intended to mean "languages with type inference are more productive", then sure, evidence would be nice. If it's intended to mean "type inference helps cut down on the need for explicit type annotations", I don't think evidence is really necessary.

lioeters5y ago

Not sure if this qualifies as evidence, but a quick search shows there are papers exploring the topic of whether type inference is a "big win" or not.

Benefits of Type Inference for an Object-Oriented Real-Time Language

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/220391749_Benefits_...

EDIT: Granted, this particular paper may be more claims without solid evidence.

ajkjk5y ago

I think the claims might be the evidence you're looking for.

eerimoqOP5y ago

Updated the GitHub repo and the HN post. Thanks.

nicoburns5y ago· 4 in thread

Question for the OP seeing as this is a Show HN: how does this compare to Nim (https://nim-lang.org/)?

nepeckman5y ago

Not OP, but a big Nim fan. I think Nim has made a mistake by marketing itself as Python inspired. I know why it does so; Python is a very successful language and as a niche language, Nim wants to associate itself with an established one. But in my experience, Nim has a very small overlap with Python. It is whitespace significant, prefers short words to symbols for operators, and has a robust stdlib. But if you look at the actual language semantics, or even the keywords, Nim is not really related to Python. I'd go as far as saying Nim is more similar to a Lisp than it is Pythonic (which works fine for me, as I prefer Lisp to Python).

All of this to say, the OPs language seems much more Pythonic. The key words, the built in functions, the class system, all seems designed to match Python as closely as possible.

elcritch5y ago

It took me a couple of weeks to realize Nim’s semantics are really different. Despite that Nim feels like an alternate reality of Python 2 -> 3 that went more lispy and a bit Pascal-ish. It gives me the old Python 2.7 vibe. Though I’d still prefer ‘def’ to ‘proc’ but that’s pretty minor to me.

It’s interesting to see how well the typed Python syntax maps to a static implementation of Python. The speed should probably be a lot faster than CPythin too for many cases.

1 more reply

eerimoqOP5y ago

It's a wide question, and I don't have a good answer. One obvious difference is the syntax. I prefer Python's syntax over Nim's, but at the same time I find Python slow sometimes and hard to use in embedded systems. I'm aiming to create something similar to Nim's toolchain to address that.

elcritch5y ago

P.S. Since you’re using C++ shared pointers, you might want a cycle detection. But like Nim’s new ARC you can let the programmer beware and ensure their programs don’t produce cycles. It seems handy to allow pure RC’ing for embedded devices.

1 more reply

dec0dedab0de5y ago· 3 in thread

This looks cool. Is there anything specific you're trying to do with Mys that another language didn't do? Nim comes to mind as being in a similar space.

Small nitpick about the title: Python is strongly typed.

eerimoqOP5y ago

Well, probably not. Nim is similar, but I prefer Mys' Python-like syntax. Mys' toolchain will probably be similar to Nim. That is, generating C/C++ code.

Sorry about the confusion. Mys is statically typed. I changed the HN post from strongly to statically to make it clear.

aidenn05y ago

I would call Python untyped

striking5y ago

You would be wrong. Try adding a string and number together. That's a type error. Unlike in JS or C, where a lot of these conversions are implicit and only warn if anything.

Python determines the types at runtime, but it is very clear about what few operations you're allowed to do on any given set of types.

2 more replies

BerislavLopac5y ago· 2 in thread

I was once toying with the idea to create a statically-typed Python-like language, and I had the perfect name for it: Typhoon... ;)

HhE3334R7hf1lLF5y ago

Alternate idea: a language called Typon in which the compiler paves over typos of keywords and symbol names.

alanbernstein5y ago

Like a whole language built on the fuckit principle.

1 more reply

dukoid5y ago· 2 in thread

I am working on something similar, although with a different focus (mobile coding): https://github.com/stefanhaustein/tantilla

P.S.: Might make sense to try to get to a common type-safe language spec?

eerimoqOP5y ago

Nice job.

I don't understand the question. Can you rephrase it? =)

dukoid5y ago

It might make sense to try to support the same subset of Python in both projects. On the other hand, this might make experimentation harder... And there seem to be many differences, for instance I am trying to move towards async/await... But there might also be areas that could be easy to get consistent, e.g. how local variables are declared...

p.s. And I wasn't aware of Cocopy either. Having a list of similarities and differences of all three might be useful...

1 more reply

tabtab5y ago· 2 in thread

Before making Yet Another Language, I'd like to see a good analysis of the options and trade-offs they offer: what does each design choice make easier and harder. There is probably no free lunch, but maybe we can find a better lunch by balancing things carefully.

eerimoqOP5y ago

For me it's pretty simple. I love Python. I like speed. I like embedded. This is an attempt to take advantage of Python's type hints to create fast and hopefully small binaries that can be executed on embedded devices limited amount of resources (both CPU and RAM).

There are probably other languages that would serve the same purpose, but oh well, I can't resist creating another. =)

h8hawk5y ago

Have you look at mypyc?

https://github.com/python/mypy

Its a compiler that support subset of python and mypy's team including Guido work on it. It would be great if this kind of efforts have been done on more realistic project.

1 more reply

toxik5y ago

> We don’t need a GC because RC

    L = []
    L.append(L)

mlthoughts20185y ago

Cython is a great tool for this. It’s a superset of Python with full static compilation support for native CPython or for pure C or C++ extension modules.

https://cython.org/

anentropic5y ago

There is also http://strlen.com/lobster/

Rust-like borrow checking with a Python-ish syntax, compiles to C++ or Wasm

hpvic035y ago

Similar and relevant:

Crystal: https://crystal-lang.org/

Sorbet: https://sorbet.org/

scottrogowski5y ago

I love this.

I have nothing else to say except that I want this to happen. Python is an amazing language which is missing two things - static types and speed. I starred your repo and am looking forward to seeing it progress.

dpc_pw5y ago

> Data races will occur when multiple threads uses a variable at the same time, which will likely make the program crash.

... or let the attacker execute arbitrary code.

trumpeta5y ago

Isn't Dotty basically statically typed Python? They added whitespace syntax recently and thanks to Scala native it should be possible to have a LLVM backend somewhere down the line.

Nasreddin_Hodja5y ago

Why not to just use Cython?

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

56 comments

40 comments · 15 top-level

sitkack5y ago· 7 in thread

Given that the OP is the github project owner, are you aware of https://chocopy.org/ ?

You might want to also look at Shedskin, https://github.com/shedskin/shedskin which converts implicitly typed Python programs to C++

viraptor5y ago

And at mypyc https://github.com/python/mypy/tree/master/mypyc

eerimoqOP5y ago

This looks promising indeed. Thanks for sharing.

nerdponx5y ago

[1]: http://nuitka.net/

[2]: https://cython.org/

[3]: https://numba.pydata.org/

t-vi5y ago

In the special purpose for computation (like Numba) department, but more general: TorchScript from PyTorch https://pytorch.org/docs/stable/jit_language_reference.html#...

It doesn't compile to C but to an IR, but some ideas around typing might be similar.

sitkack5y ago

Previous discussion of ChocoPy is here, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20957420

eerimoqOP5y ago

No, I am not aware of ChocoPy. Thanks for letting me know.

Shedskin uses the Python interpreter if I remember correctly. I aim not to.

sitkack5y ago

It can make both standalone executables as well as extension modules that can be loaded into cpython2.7

pmoriarty5y ago· 5 in thread

Strongly typed? You mean statically typed?

See "What to know before debating type systems":

http://blogs.perl.org/users/ovid/2010/08/what-to-know-before...

azhenley5y ago

> Type inference is generally a big win.

I see this claimed a lot, but haven’t seen any evidence.

aw16211075y ago

lioeters5y ago

Not sure if this qualifies as evidence, but a quick search shows there are papers exploring the topic of whether type inference is a "big win" or not.

Benefits of Type Inference for an Object-Oriented Real-Time Language

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/220391749_Benefits_...

EDIT: Granted, this particular paper may be more claims without solid evidence.

ajkjk5y ago

I think the claims might be the evidence you're looking for.

eerimoqOP5y ago

Updated the GitHub repo and the HN post. Thanks.

nicoburns5y ago· 4 in thread

Question for the OP seeing as this is a Show HN: how does this compare to Nim (https://nim-lang.org/)?

nepeckman5y ago

All of this to say, the OPs language seems much more Pythonic. The key words, the built in functions, the class system, all seems designed to match Python as closely as possible.

elcritch5y ago

It’s interesting to see how well the typed Python syntax maps to a static implementation of Python. The speed should probably be a lot faster than CPythin too for many cases.

1 more reply

eerimoqOP5y ago

elcritch5y ago

1 more reply

dec0dedab0de5y ago· 3 in thread

This looks cool. Is there anything specific you're trying to do with Mys that another language didn't do? Nim comes to mind as being in a similar space.

Small nitpick about the title: Python is strongly typed.

eerimoqOP5y ago

Well, probably not. Nim is similar, but I prefer Mys' Python-like syntax. Mys' toolchain will probably be similar to Nim. That is, generating C/C++ code.

Sorry about the confusion. Mys is statically typed. I changed the HN post from strongly to statically to make it clear.

aidenn05y ago

I would call Python untyped

striking5y ago

You would be wrong. Try adding a string and number together. That's a type error. Unlike in JS or C, where a lot of these conversions are implicit and only warn if anything.

Python determines the types at runtime, but it is very clear about what few operations you're allowed to do on any given set of types.

2 more replies

BerislavLopac5y ago· 2 in thread

I was once toying with the idea to create a statically-typed Python-like language, and I had the perfect name for it: Typhoon... ;)

HhE3334R7hf1lLF5y ago

Alternate idea: a language called Typon in which the compiler paves over typos of keywords and symbol names.

alanbernstein5y ago

Like a whole language built on the fuckit principle.

1 more reply

dukoid5y ago· 2 in thread

I am working on something similar, although with a different focus (mobile coding): https://github.com/stefanhaustein/tantilla

P.S.: Might make sense to try to get to a common type-safe language spec?

eerimoqOP5y ago

Nice job.

I don't understand the question. Can you rephrase it? =)

dukoid5y ago

p.s. And I wasn't aware of Cocopy either. Having a list of similarities and differences of all three might be useful...

1 more reply

tabtab5y ago· 2 in thread

eerimoqOP5y ago

There are probably other languages that would serve the same purpose, but oh well, I can't resist creating another. =)

h8hawk5y ago

Have you look at mypyc?

https://github.com/python/mypy

Its a compiler that support subset of python and mypy's team including Guido work on it. It would be great if this kind of efforts have been done on more realistic project.

1 more reply

toxik5y ago

> We don’t need a GC because RC

    L = []
    L.append(L)

mlthoughts20185y ago

Cython is a great tool for this. It’s a superset of Python with full static compilation support for native CPython or for pure C or C++ extension modules.

https://cython.org/

anentropic5y ago

There is also http://strlen.com/lobster/

Rust-like borrow checking with a Python-ish syntax, compiles to C++ or Wasm

hpvic035y ago

Similar and relevant:

Crystal: https://crystal-lang.org/

Sorbet: https://sorbet.org/

scottrogowski5y ago

I love this.

dpc_pw5y ago

> Data races will occur when multiple threads uses a variable at the same time, which will likely make the program crash.

... or let the attacker execute arbitrary code.

trumpeta5y ago

Isn't Dotty basically statically typed Python? They added whitespace syntax recently and thanks to Scala native it should be possible to have a LLVM backend somewhere down the line.

Nasreddin_Hodja5y ago

Why not to just use Cython?

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse