jank is C++

i commented on reddit (and got promptly downvoted) but since i think jank's author is around here (and hopefully is receptive to constructive criticism): the CppInterOp approach to cpp interop is completely janky (no pun intended). the approach literally string munges cpp and then parses/interprets it to emit ABI compliant calls. there's no reason to do this except that libclang currently doesn't support any other way. that's not jank's fault but it could be "fixed" in libclang. at a minimum you could use https://github.com/llvm/llvm-project/blob/main/clang/lib/Cod... to emit the code based on clang ast. at a maximum would be to use something like

https://github.com/Mr-Anyone/abi

or this if/when it comes to fruition

https://discourse.llvm.org/t/llvm-introduce-an-abi-lowering-...

to generate ABI compliant calls/etc for cpp libs.

note, i say all this with maximum love in my heart for a language that would have first class cpp interop - i would immediately become jank's biggest proponent/user if its cpp interop were robust.

EDIT: for people wanting/needing receipts, you can skim through https://github.com/compiler-research/CppInterOp/blob/main/li...

> the CppInterOp approach to cpp interop is completely janky (no pun intended). the approach literally string munges cpp and then parses/interprets it to emit ABI compliant calls.

So, I agree that this sounds janky as heck. My question is: besides sounding janky as heck, is there something wrong with this? Is it slow/unreliable?

i mean it's as prone to error as any other thing that relies on string munging. it's probably not that much slower than the alternative i proposed - because the trampolines/wrappers are jitted and then reused - but it's just not robust enough that i would ever imagine building a prod system on top of it (eg using cppyy in prod) let alone baking it into my language/runtime.

The delta between the title and the content gave me extreme pause, thanks for sharing that there's, uh, worse problems.

I'm a bit surprised I've seen two articles about jank here the last 2 days if these are exemplars of the technical approach and communication style. Seems like that wouldn't be enough to get on people's radars.

Which particular delta between the title and the content gave you extreme pause?

It said "jank is C++", which I assumed would be explaining that jank compiles down to C++ or something similar, i.e. there is a layer of abstraction between jank and C++, but it effectively "works like" C++.

On re-read, I recognize where it is used in the article:

"jank is C++. There is no runtime reflection, no guess work, and no hints. If the compiler can't find a member, or a function, or a particular overload, you will get a compiler error."

I assume other interop scenarios don't pull this off*, thus it is distinctive. Additionally, I'm not at all familiar with Clojure, sadly, but it also sounds like there's some special qualities there ("I think that this is an interesting way to start thinking about jank, Clojure, and static types")

Now I'll riff and just write out the first 3-5 titles that come to mind with that limited understanding:

- Implementing compile-time verifiable C++ interop in jank

- Sparks of C++ interop: jank, Clojure, & verifying interop before runtime

- jank's progress on C++ interop

- Safe C++ interop lessons from jank

* for example, I write a lot of Dart day to day and rely on Dart's "FFI" implementation to call C++, which now that I'm thinking about, only works because there's a code generator that creates "Dart headers" (my term) for the C++ libraries. I could totally footgun and call arbitrary functions that don't exist.

My reasoning is this:

jank is written in C++. Its compiler and runtime are both in C++. jank can compile to C++ directly (or LLVM IR). jank can reach into C++ seamlessly, which includes reaching into its own compiler/runtime. Thus, the boundary between what is C++ and what is Clojure is gone, which leaves jank as being both Clojure and C++.

Achieving this singularity is a milestone for jank and, I think, is worthy of the title.