Show HN: Axis – A systems programming language with Python syntax(github.com)
12 pointsby AGDNoob4 hours ago5 comments
  • rzzzwilson4 hours ago
    Where is the "python syntax"?
    • hresvelgr3 hours ago
      I suspect that was in the initial prompt that was used to generate this and the LLM decided Rust syntax was preferable.
      • metadat3 hours ago
        Yes, it looks almost exactly like Rust. Expectations violation! :)
    • AGDNoob4 hours ago
      Yeah that's fair. It's got "fn main()", types like "i32", and uses braces. More Rust-like than Python to be honest. The "Python-like" part is mostly wishful thinking about readability. Should've just called it "minimalist systems language" or something
      • rzzzwilson4 hours ago
        I was hoping for no {}, just indentation, but ...
        • nine_k3 hours ago
          Indent-based syntax is relatively simple to parse. You basically need two pieces of state: are you in indent-sensitive mode (not inside a literal, not inside a parenthesized expression), and what indentation did the previous line have. Then you can easily issue INDENT and DEDENT tokens, which work exactly like "{" and "}". The actual Python parser does issue these tokens.

          Actually Haskell has both indent-based and curlies-based syntax, and curlies freely replace indentation, and vice versa (but only as pairs).

          • pansa232 minutes ago
            > You basically need two pieces of state

            That’s enough for INDENT, but for DEDENT you also need a stack of previous indentation levels. That’s how, when the amount of indentation decreases, you know how many DEDENTs to emit.

            The requirement for a stack means that Python’s lexical grammar is not regular.

        • AGDNoob3 hours ago
          Yeah braces made the parser way simpler for a first attempt. Significant whitespace is on the maybe-list but honestly seems scary to implement correctly
          • zahlman3 hours ago
            I feel like Python-style indentation should be much easier to parse intuitively (preprocess the line, count leading levels of indentation) than by fully committing to formal theory. Not theoretically optimal and not "single-pass" but is that really the bottleneck?
            • AGDNoob3 hours ago
              Yeah, that’s fair. Conceptually it’s not that hard if you’re willing to do a proper preprocess pass and generate INDENT and DEDENT tokens. For this first version I mostly optimized for not shooting myself in the foot, braces gave me very explicit block boundaries, simpler error handling, and a much easier time while bringing up the compiler and codegen. Significant whitespace is definitely interesting long term, but for a v0 learning project I wanted something boring and robust first. Once the core stabilizes, revisiting indentation based blocks would make a lot more sense
              • zahlman2 hours ago
                Fair enough.

                Might I suggest that now is a good time to try and make a concrete wish-list of syntax features you'd like to see, and start drafting examples of how you'd like the code to look?

  • hresvelgr2 hours ago
    It's my belief that the author has almost entirely used an LLM to put this together. Tailor engagement accordingly.
    • kej2 hours ago
      It's definitely odd that someone who allegedly wrote a complete compiler in Python would describe something that is obviously Rust syntax as Python-like.
      • AGDNooban hour ago
        I totally agree. "Python-like" was a bad choice of words on my part. I meant it more in terms of learning curve and explicitness, not the surface syntax. Structurally its more like C/Rust and I should have said that from the start
    • didip2 hours ago
      How do you know this? It looks more like some kid’s homework
      • 21 minutes ago
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  • AGDNoob4 hours ago
    I built AXIS as a learning project in compiler design. It compiles directly to x86-64 machine code without LLVM, has zero runtime dependencies (no libc, direct syscalls), and uses Python-like syntax. Currently Linux-only, ~1500 lines of Python. All test programs compile and run. The one-line installer works: curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/AGDNoob/axis-lang/main/ins... | bash It's very early (beta), but I'd love feedback on the design and approach!
  • nine_k3 hours ago
    > 4. No Magic – No hidden allocations, no garbage collector, no virtual machine

    I assume also "5. No stdlib"? Will it be even able to print("Hello world") not by doing a direct write() syscall?

    • AGDNooban hour ago
      Right now there’s intentionally no stdlib, so yes, printing would ultimately boil down to a direct write syscall. The idea is that the core language stays as thin as possible and anything higher level lives on top of that, either as compiler intrinsics or a very small stdlib later. For the MVP I wanted to make the boundary explicit instead of pretending there’s no syscall underneath. So “Hello world” will work, but in a very boring, low level way at first
  • Panzerschrek22 minutes ago
    It looks like yet another C-like language with same problems C has, notably memory-safety.