Lobster – statically typed programming language

Lobster is a statically typed programming language with a Python-esque syntax that combines the advantages of an expressive type system and compile-time memory management with a very lightweight, friendly and terse syntax, by doing most of the heavy lifting for you.

This is free and open source software.

Features include:

• Language:
  • Static typing that feels almost as easy to write as dynamic typing thanks to “Flow-Sensitive Type-Inference and Specialization”.
  • Compile time reference counting / lifetime analysis / borrow checker.
  • Lightweight Blocks / Anonymous Functions that make any function using them look identical to built-in control structures.
  • Vector operations (for math and many other builtins).
  • Unified overloading & dynamic dispatch, in & outside classes, supporting specialization.
  • Immutable “inline” structs (zero overhead).
  • GIL-less, race-less distributed memory model multi-threading.
  • Python-style indentation based syntax with C-style flavoring
• Implementation:
  • Choose between running directly using the convenient JIT, or compilation to C++ for extra speed.
  • Reference Counting with cycle detection at exit, 95% of reference count ops removed at compile time thanks to lifetime analysis.
  • Fully graphical debugger (inspect stack traces, modify variables etc).
  • Dynamic code loading.
  • Relatively fast (order of magnitude faster than Python, significantly faster than Lua (benchmark), not yet a C competitor, but can be eventually) and economical (low overhead memory allocation)
  • Easy to deploy (engine/JIT exe + compressed bytecode file)
  • Modularly extendable with your own library of C++ functions
• Engine:
  • Portable (mostly courtesy of OpenGL/SDL/Freetype), allowing your games to be run on
  • Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, iOS, Android and WebAssembly (in that order of maturity, currently).
  • High level interface to OpenGL functionality, very quick to get going with simple 2D geometric primitives
  • 3D primitive construction either directly from triangles, or using high level primitives made into meshes through marching cubes
  • GLSL shaders (usable accross OpenGL & OpenGL ES 2 without changes)
  • Accurate text rendering through FreeType
  • Uniform input system for mouse & touch
  • Simple sound system supporting .wav and .sfxr synth files.
  • ImGui support.
  • Comes with useful libraries written in Lobster for things like A* path finding and game GUIs

Website: github.com/aardappel/lobster
Support:
Developer: Wouter van Oortmerssen
License: Apache 2.0 License

Lobster is written in C++ and C. Learn C++ with our recommended free books and free tutorials. Learn C with our recommended free books and free tutorials.

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