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authorMarshall Lochbaum <mwlochbaum@gmail.com>2021-04-15 22:03:37 -0400
committerMarshall Lochbaum <mwlochbaum@gmail.com>2021-04-15 22:03:37 -0400
commitbbe589b136df82a3e0a6e0801b33218c49105fb6 (patch)
tree57fd8676fbbf48f36722609f5dfac91d1a416df4 /docs/running.html
parent5cdd24de4d8d50d10ef000d46772f7bd488e9357 (diff)
Move executable to bqn.js so the online REPL doesn't have to load lots of node-specific code
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<h1 id="how-to-run-bqn">How to run BQN</h1>
<p>There are currently two active BQN implementations: the self-hosted one in this repository, and the independent dzaima/BQN. Neither is entirely complete but they are quite capable for pure programming tasks (say, implementing a compiler). dzaima/BQN has good performance while self-hosted is about a thousand times slower. I tend to develop parts of applications in the online REPL and move to dzaima/BQN scripts in order to run them.</p>
<h3 id="bqn">BQN</h3>
-<p>The online REPL is <a href="https://mlochbaum.github.io/BQN/try.html">here</a>. The file <a href="https://github.com/mlochbaum/BQN/blob/master/docs/bqn.js">docs/bqn.js</a> is zero-dependency Javascript, and can be loaded from HTML or Node.js. It can also be called directly from the command line (using Node): pass a file and <code><span class='Value'>•args</span></code> or <code><span class='Function'>-</span><span class='Value'>e</span></code> to execute all remaining arguments directly and print the results. <a href="https://observablehq.com/@lsh/bqn">This notebook</a> shows how to run it in an Observable notebook.</p>
+<p>The online REPL is <a href="https://mlochbaum.github.io/BQN/try.html">here</a>. The file <a href="https://github.com/mlochbaum/BQN/blob/master/docs/bqn.js">docs/bqn.js</a> is zero-dependency Javascript, and can be loaded from HTML or Node.js. For command line use, call the Node.js script <a href="https://github.com/mlochbaum/BQN/blob/master/bqn.js">bqn.js</a>, passing a file and <code><span class='Value'>•args</span></code>, or <code><span class='Function'>-</span><span class='Value'>e</span></code> to execute all remaining arguments directly and print the results. <a href="https://observablehq.com/@lsh/bqn">This notebook</a> shows how to run it in an Observable notebook.</p>
<p>The version of BQN in this repository is implemented mainly in BQN itself—the compiler is entirely self-hosted, while the runtime is built from a small number of starting functions using preprocessed BQN. It completely supports the core language except for block headers and multiple body syntax, and a few cases of structural Under (<code><span class='Modifier2'>⌾</span></code>). The Javascript-based compiler is also slow, taking about 0.05 seconds plus 1 second per kilobyte of source (this is purely due to the slow runtime, as dzaima+reference achieves 1ms/kB with the same compiler once warmed up).</p>
<p>Because self-hosted BQN requires only a simple virtual machine to run, it is <a href="implementation/vm.html">fairly easy</a> to embed it in another programming language by implementing this virtual machine. The way data is represented is part of the VM implementation: it can use native arrays or a custom data structure, depending on what the language supports. An initial implementation will be very slow, but can be improved by replacing functions from the BQN-based runtime with native code. As the VM system can be hard to work with if you're not familiar with it, I advise you to contact me to discuss this option it you are interested.</p>
<p>In progress VMs are <a href="https://github.com/dzaima/CBQN">CBQN</a> in C, and <a href="https://github.com/cannadayr/ebqn">ebqn</a> in Erlang. Although both of these work (can compile and run code; only missing some fill support in CBQN), neither is considered useful for any purpose yet. CBQN is likely to become the main high-performance BQN implementation but is currently only a few times faster than Javascript and has an interface that's only useful for testing. ebqn is extremely slow—hours to compile.</p>