Nomi

The State of Nomi

Right now, Nomi is in its very early stages of development, and everything is subject to change. Any questions can be asked here on GitHub or through email, [email protected].

About

I've been wanting to write a compiler for a very long time now, and this is my first honest attempt at it. I've decided to pivot from making a C compiler to just starting with my own language. I want to keep C compatiblity and interop, but the language will look more high level than C. I'm going for a Zig-esque language but handcrafted. Not there is anything wrong with Zig or that I feel like I can make a better Zig, but I want to append / amend C. The plans are evolving, but there are a few things I want to implement into my take on a language with heavy inspiration from C:

Interfaces
Better type system to allow for things like generics without macros
Optionals builtin to the language
Better error system (errors as types)
Slices
Defer
Custom backend (for shits and giggles)

Note: the ones in bold are more important to me

Of course the first compiler for my language (which I have yet to name) will be written in Zig. But there are definitely plans to helf-host my language and bootstrap the compiler.

Everything will be written from scratch only relying on the Zig standard library. Though, there will not be any effort to make this cross-platform. This project is purely for learning and will jumpstart future ideas of writing an OS in this language one day.

TODO List

Better printing of compiler types (Location, ast, Token)
Rework how the AST is represented internally
Start work on IR layer to abstract frontend and backend
Start handrolling an assembler from IR
External functions from Nomi (written in FASM) (extern func sys_exit(i32) void;)
Start work on user declared functions and calling user declared functions
More types ("Strings", specific integer types)
Variables
Functions which takes args
Hello, World! (No libc)
x86_64-Linux Backend
x86-Freestanding Backend

More Gradual Additions / Features

NOTE:

These features / additions will be implemented throughout the process of writing the compiler. They are more subjective and don't have a clear goal / indication of being done. These are more just things to keep in mind for myself as I continue to improve the compiler.

It is important to keep in mind that this version of the compiler only needs to be able to compile Nomi programs which can compile Nomi programs. This is the bootstrap compiler, we still have to write one more after we compile the first Nomi compiler.

Improve error system for compiler internals.
Semantic Analysis
Type System

Getting Started

Dependencies

• Zig v0.14.1
• Fasm v1.73.32
• ld linker v2.44.0

Building the Compiler

To get started with using the compiler, for what very little it can do right now, you need to first build the compiler. You can build the compiler with this command:

zig build # Build the compiler

Using the Compiler

./zig-out/bin/nomic main.nom -o main.o # Run the compiler and output as main.o
ld main.o -o main # Link main.o to an ELF executable
./main # Run the newly compiled executable
echo $? # to see the exit code of main
        # The output should be 42 if main.nom was not updated

There are plans to rework this process. But this is the simplest way of handling it so far. The compiler will output a straight executable eventually, don't worry

What can the compiler do right now?

Currently, the compiler only supports one function being in a file. Within that function, you can call external functions (nothing is checked yet) which take one argument which is a number with a bit-width greater than 32. We don't link with libc, so the only functions you can call are the ones hardcoded in the assembly file generated behind the scenes before it's assembled by the compiler.

The compiler will emit an object file for you to link yourself. There are plans to change this in the future, but this lets me do something else before I introduce compiling multiple files or mixing files and object files. Basically, everything in the compiler will improve at once. We have to allow for more options to parsed and then we can emit an executable file. But this is not much of a priority right now.

What's in a name?

Noh-mee

The name Nomi comes from a few different places. Most notably, it is heavily inspired by my girlfriend's nickname, Nemo. Nomi is a loose combination of her nickname and her real name. Nomi also has a few meanings I think are very neat. The two meanings that stand out to me are beautiful (Hebrew and Japanese) and ocean (Japanese). Both meanings are perfect and accurately reflect her and her names.

A motto I've come up with is: "Built from beauty for power"

LICENSE

The Nomi project is licensed under the MIT License and everything it says.