Since we focus on safety, it would be nice to reduce the chance of any
runtime errors if we made a typo for a resource parameter. With this
patch, each resource can export constants into the global namespace so
that typos would cause a compile error.
Of course in the future if we had a more advanced type system, then we
could support precise types for each individual resource param, but in
an attempt to keep things simple, we'll leave that for another day. It
would add complexity too if we ever wanted to store a parameter
externally.
Lastly, we might consider adding "special case" parsing so that directly
specified fields would parse intelligently. For example, we could allow:
file "/tmp/hello" {
state => exists, # magic sugar!
}
This isn't supported for now, but if it works after all the other parser
changes have been made, it might be something to consider.
This adds a giant missing piece of the language: proper function values!
It is lovely to now understand why early programming language designers
didn't implement these, but a joy to now reap the benefits of them. In
adding these, many other changes had to be made to get them to "fit"
correctly. This improved the code and fixed a number of bugs.
Unfortunately this touched many areas of the code, and since I was
learning how to do all of this for the first time, I've squashed most of
my work into a single commit. Some more information:
* This adds over 70 new tests to verify the new functionality.
* Functions, global variables, and classes can all be implemented
natively in mcl and built into core packages.
* A new compiler step called "Ordering" was added. It is called by the
SetScope step, and determines statement ordering and shadowing
precedence formally. It helped remove at least one bug and provided the
additional analysis required to properly capture variables when
implementing function generators and closures.
* The type unification code was improved to handle the new cases.
* Light copying of Node's allowed our function graphs to be more optimal
and share common vertices and edges. For example, if two different
closures capture a variable $x, they'll both use the same copy when
running the function, since the compiler can prove if they're identical.
* Some areas still need improvements, but this is ready for mainstream
testing and use!
These weren't yet exposed in mcl. They're now available under the same
Meta namespace as the normal meta param structs. Even though they live
as a separate trait, they should be exposed together for a consistent
interface in mcl. If autoedge or autogroup ever grow additional params,
we can always add: `Meta:autoedge:something` to break it down further.
This adds a core looping construct by allowing a list of names to build
a resource. They'll all have the same parameters, but they'll
intelligently add the correct list of edges that they'd individually
create.
Constructs like these are one reason we do NOT have actual looping
functionality in the language, and it should stay that way.
This enables imports in mcl code, and is one of last remaining blockers
to using mgmt. Now we can start writing standalone modules, and adding
standard library functions as needed. There's still lots to do, but this
was a big missing piece. It was much harder to get right than I had
expected, but I think it's solid!
This unfortunately large commit is the result of some wild hacking I've
been doing for the past little while. It's the result of a rebase that
broke many "wip" commits that tracked my private progress, into
something that's not gratuitously messy for our git logs. Since this was
a learning and discovery process for me, I've "erased" the confusing git
history that wouldn't have helped. I'm happy to discuss the dead-ends,
and a small portion of that code was even left in for possible future
use.
This patch includes:
* A change to the cli interface:
You now specify the front-end explicitly, instead of leaving it up to
the front-end to decide when to "activate". For example, instead of:
mgmt run --lang code.mcl
we now do:
mgmt run lang --lang code.mcl
We might rename the --lang flag in the future to avoid the awkward word
repetition. Suggestions welcome, but I'm considering "input". One
side-effect of this change, is that flags which are "engine" specific
now must be specified with "run" before the front-end name. Eg:
mgmt run --tmp-prefix lang --lang code.mcl
instead of putting --tmp-prefix at the end. We also changed the GAPI
slightly, but I've patched all code that used it. This also makes things
consistent with the "deploy" command.
* The deploys are more robust and let you deploy after a run
This has been vastly improved and let's mgmt really run as a smart
engine that can handle different workloads. If you don't want to deploy
when you've started with `run` or if one comes in, you can use the
--no-watch-deploy option to block new deploys.
* The import statement exists and works!
We now have a working `import` statement. Read the docs, and try it out.
I think it's quite elegant how it fits in with `SetScope`. Have a look.
As a result, we now have some built-in functions available in modules.
This also adds the metadata.yaml entry-point for all modules. Have a
look at the examples or the tests. The bulk of the patch is to support
this.
* Improved lang input parsing code:
I re-wrote the parsing that determined what ran when we passed different
things to --lang. Deciding between running an mcl file or raw code is
now handled in a more intelligent, and re-usable way. See the inputs.go
file if you want to have a look. One casualty is that you can't stream
code from stdin *directly* to the front-end, it's encapsulated into a
deploy first. You can still use stdin though! I doubt anyone will notice
this change.
* The scope was extended to include functions and classes:
Go forth and import lovely code. All these exist in scopes now, and can
be re-used!
* Function calls actually use the scope now. Glad I got this sorted out.
* There is import cycle detection for modules!
Yes, this is another dag. I think that's #4. I guess they're useful.
* A ton of tests and new test infra was added!
This should make it much easier to add new tests that run mcl code. Have
a look at TestAstFunc1 to see how to add more of these.
As usual, I'll try to keep these commits smaller in the future!
This is a giant refactor to move functions into a hierarchial module
layout. While this isn't entirely implemented yet, it should work
correctly once all the import bits have landed. What's broken at the
moment is the template function, which currently doesn't understand the
period separator.
This adds support for the class definition statement and the include
statement which produces the output from the corresponding class.
The classes in this language support optional input parameters.
In contrast with other tools, the class is *not* a singleton, although
it can be used as one. Using include with equivalent input parameters
will cause the class to act as a singleton, although it can also be used
to produce distinct output.
The output produced by including a class is actually a list of
statements (a prog) which is ultimately a list of resources and edges.
This is different from functions which produces values.
This adds the ability to specify internal, resource specific edges, with
and without notifications. We use the special words: "Notify", "Before",
"Listen", and "Depend". They must have the first character capitalized.
They also support the "elvis" operator.
This allows you to omit a resource parameter programmatically, and
avoids the need of an `undef` or `nil` in our language, which would
contribute to programming errors, crashes, and overall reduced safety.
While writing docs, I couldn't remember what the correct style was
supposed to be, and I remember someone complaining about this
previously, so I decided to add a linter! I excluded a bunch of annoying
style rules, but if we find more we can add those to the list too.
Hopefully this gives us a more consistent feel throughout.
This patch adds a simple function API for writing simple, pure
functions. This should reduce the amount of boilerplate required for
most functions, and make growing a stdlib significantly easier. If you
need to build more complex, event-generating functions, or statically
polymorphic functions, then you'll still need to use the normal API for
now.
This also makes all of these pure functions available automatically
within templates. It might make sense to group these functions into
packages to make their logical organization easier, but this is a good
enough start for now.
Lastly, this added some missing pieces to our types library. You can now
use `ValueOf` to convert from a `reflect.Value` to the corresponding
`Value` in our type system, if an equivalent exists.
Unfortunately, we're severely lacking in tests for these new types
library additions, but look forward to growing some in the future!
This is an initial implementation of the mgmt language. It is a
declarative (immutable) functional, reactive, domain specific
programming language. It is intended to be a language that is:
* safe
* powerful
* easy to reason about
With these properties, we hope this language, and the mgmt engine will
allow you to model the real-time systems that you'd like to automate.
This also includes a number of other associated changes. Sorry for the
large size of this patch.
