Next Generation Shell Weekly Meetings, 28 Nov 2021

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From YouTube: NGS weekly meeting #8 - 2021-11-28

Description

Project website - https://ngs-lang.org/

Website update pull request - https://github.com/ngs-lang/ngs/pull/486

MacOS man pages fix pull request - https://github.com/ngs-lang/ngs/pull/503

Closed issue about fixed decoding of Bool - https://github.com/ngs-lang/ngs/issues/451

Pattern matching in NGS - https://github.com/ngs-lang/ngs/wiki/UPM-Design

A

Hey recording in progress, okay, hello, everybody uh welcome to weekly ngs meeting ngs stands for next generation. Shell here is ricardo, a contributor.

B

To the project, I'm.

A

Ilya, the author of the project, so ngs meetings are about recent progress and near future plans, sometimes far future plans.

A

Okay, I think ricardo. You go first because I have a bunch of that. I want to tell.

B

Oh, that's nice.

A

Well, it's not necessarily much progress, but it's many things that I would like to say. Okay,.

B

So yeah, so we need to close up the website stuff. So you need to correct.

A

B

Out sometime for giving inputs and closing this pull request either way, you know it's better to have a website that is half done than to have no website. So I guess it's positive. Well, it depends how much have done and how this half looks like.

A

B

Looks awesome always looks awesome, so the other thing I managed to get some time to work on this week was about the man not working on mac os.

B

So I traced it down to the point that uh apparently uh the place where the money is being stored is not the default place on mac os for reading the months so yeah.

A

I I think I I think I've seen this uh diff and I was wondering so so. I I've seen there's an if if it's mac os or linux yeah- and I was wondering if there was maybe some valuable in cmake, because.

B

There is a file you might know there is a file yeah yeah, so there is a file. I looked at the file, I'm not sure. If there is a variable, I couldn't find it. So I was searching for that. That was my first idea also.

A

B

Tried to search for it- and I couldn't find you know any decent way of that. Also I don't have a lot of experience on cmake, so that also may be.

A

I think it's good for your mental health that, yes, you don't.

B

So what I did is I looked at where this thing is stored on mac. That is, you know a file and I looked inside the file and I realized right that currently we are putting the things in user, local man and apparently mac reads it from user local share man. You know why yeah.

A

B

What uh so I did the fix, it's just a nif, so you know it's it's fine. So what what I was actually now thinking about is that I should probably do a uni test about that, because I was asking you to test on your linux and on your mac. To be sure you know it was working fine, but I could actually also do a a test for this to see if the command would return. You know, okay or you know, or fail.

A

Yes, the max yes, that's the way, because yeah and because.

B

You know there could still be issues right because maybe the dockers, you know read it from different place. I don't know, I hope not uh yeah look into this, but you.

A

B

You know we would feel a bit better right if this was unit tested. So.

A

Yes, I would feel them actually much better.

B

So that's my I just thought about this. You know five minutes ago.

A

B

A

Thought I will add.

B

That there, but at least the man on my computer, now works on the mac. So I guess that's the way to is.

A

It really helpful.

B

Demand well at least I cannot access it. You know.

A

Well, yeah so yeah feel free to you know open issues. If something is missing from one which would you would expect to be there yeah.

B

So that's the only time you know I had to to to do something, but you know I should start picking some of these tasks because we are getting with 259 issues. We need to start cleaning.

A

Up this thing now we need to start cleaning.

B

Up this thing you know we need to to enter in. uh You know to enter in a week or month that we just do ngs night to you know date tonight clean up all.

A

Of this, I don't know how you see that in our schedule of our free time, it's.

B

Always a question of management right.

A

Of priorities, yeah priorities.

B

Here, let's see, let's see if we get time for that, but that would be nice, so my input here is that you know we should start cleaning more and more of these tasks and we.

A

Should, on the other hand, you know if, if I'm working on something, I'm trying to focus on it, so if I uh see like a side dish I'll just file a bug and I'll continue, that's.

B

Totally fine, but whatever.

A

No, we probably.

B

Should start by the smaller issues so that we can clean the number, let's say.

A

And leave the bigger issues.

B

For the ends, because you.

A

B

Yeah, at least then it will be easier for us to manage them. Yeah.

A

B

A

That sometimes probably not enough yeah, okay, so uh yeah, so anything else from your side. No, that was okay, so uh yeah I've seen uh you had comments on issues and stuff like that yeah I didn't get to any of that yet, but I made progress on other things, so, um let's get to that. Okay. So for the first point I by the way prepared notes. So I don't.

B

A

Stuff, so if I missed stuff, it happened already, because it's not in the notes, okay um yeah. So I would like to share my window and go over recent issues that I opened just for fun.

A

While I was working on the aws lambda but hold.

B

A

B

That's why we should have. We should clean up all the issues so that we have small enough issues that we can talk on the meeting like. Oh, we have these five issues, big ones right, never.

A

Gonna happen, never gonna happen. I can tell you this okay, so so first, which was actually last, but actually it's first. So here's the issue. I've seen some code which you might find somewhat familiar, uh where status.

B

Is actually yeah yeah, yeah? Okay? So this.

A

And I was thinking, maybe make a pattern like this, but five minutes ago I uh concluded that existing facilities in the language would be good enough status in two two. Three and.

B

A

Is nice um yeah? That's part.

B

Of the language.

A

All right, please use this yeah, it's part of the language, already it's standard uh yeah. So it's a range two dots, that's excluding the three hundred three.

B

Dots would be including.

A

B

Can you do something yeah.

A

B

Paste that and put on the snippets on the discord uh instead.

A

B

We have this, like you know, one liners channel.

A

B

A

This example status: yes,.

B

Yeah, instead of just put the instead of that, normally in a language, you would do it like this and then yes, you.

A

B

Do it like this yeah yeah, please do the comment I'll just paste that no just okay.

A

And you have to code.

B

There yeah, but okay, I have the hold instead of that yeah.

B

A

B

Reply, you have to reply to the other one yeah.

A

B

Or put it before.

A

B

A

Edit it before yeah.

B

A

Language: okay,.

B

In nps yeah in ngs, you can do it by yeah, no just straight. Yes, mgs, nice, okay, yeah! This way, you know we start to get to collect this right. Well, I'm awesome.

A

We need to do some rules with. What's you know what makes there and what doesn't meet the criteria? Okay, probably not okay, so we can close this one. So now we have one issue less.

B

A

So other issues so tr the new facilities that I added. Unfortunately, I have forgotten to add it in the script which makes uh the documentation and- and why did it miss it because it's it's a standalone file like it's, not the communication doesn't see it because it's not loaded, you need to load it like other.

B

A

And I'm thinking, maybe it's doing something generic, but right now it's just an open issue. Okay, as you rightfully mentioned, we need to set up email. That would be probably me.

B

A

We need to set up email for the ngslang okay. I uh also seen that there are missing documentation for all of methods.

A

As a reminder, all office represents a pattern where all of the sub patterns needs need to match for the uh overall match same for any off, but it's any of the patterns should match. Maybe we could give an example any off. Let's.

B

A

I'll share uh the terminal- maybe no, maybe later I'll, take a note that maybe later when I share the yeah.

B

A

B

Liner, once you do the documentation for that, just you.

A

B

Or put it on the channel, you know we added documentation for that.

A

Let me think about this: okay, so okay, json parse succeed when a number is full benefit. So this one is pretty bad. Okay, you make a less yeah and the first file is one html.

B

A

Js tries to parse stuff and also json, okay and the c library which I use for json. The code.

B

It doesn't matter.

A

For zc libraries that it passed only like some of the text- I guess it's by design by the way. So in this situation it passes one dot uh understands it's a real number and returns real number 1.0.

A

Yeah yeah, it looks completely weird when you see that so you do backslash backing back to kls and you get real 1.0 and it was like one html. It's completely bizarre okay, but I uh it's it looks like it will be pretty work, some some work to do to fix that. So uh I left it for now, but it would be like one of the acute that needs to be fixed. Okay.

A

That was some time ago. It was not okay, so we are done with the last week uh regarding the bugs next thing. Okay of the closed issues. uh I closed.

A

I don't see it here for the moment.

B

A

How do you mark.

B

The issues that are already having a pull request- or you know.

A

uh Full request: no there, whatever. uh If I commit the fixing to dev, I close the issue because I don't want it to be open until, like uh two months.

B

Or whatever we release full request, it's pull request to dev, so I guess who.

A

Requests to div well, what's not in the dev, it's not marked as fixed, so I put in progress so that we know it's, someone is doing it. Okay, you can create a new tag that you know, pull requests or pr pr exists or some. I think I think it is in other projects. Pr exists.

B

Okay, but you have in progress, is good enough. You know just.

A

Also also good yeah, oh you wait is it? Is it like.

B

Yeah, okay, nevermind yeah. There is an important thing for you, and this is only you who can do it. So if you scroll down- and this should have been done by the way before you released last time- yeah- but I guess it enters on the next.

A

One closed or not open.

B

It's uh it's open. It's cleanup, ngs source.

A

Yeah, I I actually don't think it's high priority by the way.

B

We should you know it's very hard to navigate. You know, because we have so many things that we don't know what they are. They know like well, they've been supposed to be in the project.

A

That's that's for the event packages. Small poc can be moved. Actually, I think, build build, build scripts, well, build scripts and build skips. It's part of the project ah helper skips yeah. I need to look into this. I I agree that it needs to be done. I don't think it's high priority yeah. I just.

B

You know it should look nice right, the source so that people can navigate on it.

A

B

A

Most people wouldn't care that much uh from several.

B

Issues. Okay, so, but you have the show okay, so.

A

B

A

So I can't find it, but I fixed the code, I think ricardo uh yeah this one four days ago. I didn't see it in the closed ones. So, okay, so uh if you remember, uh we seen that uh the strings starting with y were parsed as boolean. Yes, yes, well guess what there was a regular expression and and the closing bracket was in the wrong places should be in the end and it was like somewhere in the beginning.

A

So anyhow, this is now fixed, of course, and uh it's not like the that you type y x and it will, it will fail now it will fail. It will not parse it as boolean. True.

B

A

Okay, so that one is fixed okay on dev branch, I organized the readme.

A

So it previously had.

A

Had two different sections of links: oh.

B

A

One here and one quick links, so I merged all of that and we have one big section of links could maybe we can subdivide it into more categories.

B

Yeah so last time I did the installing, which is already in master. I see.

A

Yeah, it's here.

B

Yeah nice yeah.

A

Yeah, okay, so next thing: okay, so next big thing, I started working on the iaw slam, the custom runtime; okay, it's a separate project; okay,.

B

A

Like okay, so um there will, it will be some work here so because um I wanted to be okay, so there are two options as far as I understood, by the way, my understanding there is not 100, yet you can do a layer or you can do a custom runtime like completely like new container stuff, like that, I'm going with custom layer, because I want um to make possible to use ngs as like additional language in the container yeah. It.

B

Makes sense the way.

A

I don't really understand how to do that, because if you make a layer which contains a runtime, you need to provide the slash bootstrap file.

A

Okay, if you just want to use the language, I guess that bootstrap will actually shadow the original bootstrap file and I'm not don't know how that's supposed to work, but I'll I'll. Just continue. Reading.

B

A

B

Layer layer is the way yeah. I looked into that also in the past yeah.

A

B

Yeah because then they maintain the bottom systems right, it's not up to you. Yeah.

A

Yeah, the shitty part of the bottom system is actually red head based, uh which will.

B

Yeah apt-get doesn't exist.

A

Yeah so there's no up, you have yam, but on the other hand, if you solve that, we also solve for running ngs in cloud shell.

B

Because the years was the same thing for that there was an issue for that right, yeah.

A

I know, but uh now apparently it's it's a blocking for this one.

B

But where was the issue? Do you remember because I saw it, but then I lost it completely. uh I think.

A

It was cloud shell or iw. Yes, let's see the problems. uh Aws, no uh cloud. Shell. Nope closed, no consider.

B

I see consider aws cloud shell, installation.

A

Cloud channel yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, so.

B

A

Now it's probably a blocker for the.

B

A

Red time has come.

B

By the way, so I started.

A

Looking at this and guess what there is a problem and and the problem okay, so I started okay by the bootstrap okay, I took the one that they had for bash and I just rewrote this and then yes, well guess what and then? Yes, it's look it's looking much better, but there are a few things here. Okay, so, let's start with all the problems I didn't find peg, which is a real-time dependency.

A

B

A

Library from 2016 last of the 2016., they don't have it. I don't know and also pandoc I didn't find. Maybe we can do without pandora, because pandora was supposed to be for man, and uh maybe we can like give that up.

B

But are we using pandora because I didn't saw it in the man script uh we used to build man, I don't.

A

B

Cause I looked at yeah because I recently didn't know.

A

Okay, I I can tell you that the source of one pages is markdown, because it was like too shitty of a syntax to work with. So uh I did one and and by the way it's it's. The sources in markdown and the output is not only man but also the html pages for the uh documents site.

B

Yeah I know I know that that part is cool.

A

B

So I'm just seeing you know if we actually import spam doc on the because I didn't saw the import there. That's why I was asking uh importantly: I missed it.

A

B

On c make library on the c make list.

A

B

Library, it's a it's a binary, it's a program, external program that uh that's being used, but generally you include it on cmc list right, including.

A

No, no, no, I think.

B

Not let's see yeah.

A

Just grab pandork, I don't know.

B

I guess well, we have on the install remote control.

B

Well, we do have it yeah.

A

It's in yours, okay, trust me.

B

We still use it, I guess so right, I I see it yeah, we do use it make nps yeah.

A

Yeah we use it yeah. I told you, okay, uh so take a look at this uh thingy, so you are past environment variable with underscore handler, so, okay, how how all this works. uh When your runtime starts, when your laptop starts, it looks for the bootstrap file and runs that that's it uh other than that. You have apis that you need to call okay and the most important api is on this line. That's the invocation! Next!

A

So when you, when you call this api you're blocked until there is incoming request.

B

A

Okay, so, okay, now, let's, uh let's look for a moment what is happening so this environment underscore handler.

A

That's how you pass the file name and the function name to run okay, so here's this part which deals with that and I don't like it a lot this uh inability to to assign to two variables at once- and I was thinking about this- how to do that and the problem that when I think about this is just too much to think about, because why.

B

Don't you do it like in like javascript, does it you just do an array with the variables I.

A

B

What I was thinking about.

A

That and I'm not sure I like completely like it and I'm not sure that it's the most appropriate way for ngs to implement that.

A

So I already had some failures: coping from other languages, so here are my thoughts. Okay,.

B

A

You put like area on the left side.

A

It can start like getting messy okay, because then you add, like dot dot dot to capture like uh arbitrary number of elements right like.

B

Like starting, no, you don't allow why.

A

B

Because not so uh why not.

A

What do we allow.

B

You just trick that that thing right, so the output of the.

A

B

Yeah, the only variable names and the output has to match the amount of variable names that you have on the left side. If not you break.

A

Yeah, what if you're interested just in into first element and other elements, do not future.

B

Future, you think about it,.

A

I know I want to think about this now, because maybe it's not the appropriate way to go about this, I see, maybe it will be like garbage syntax. You know which is not yeah yeah. So there were several thoughts and I kind of we're thinking about something like that. Well here it's a comment right, but maybe in ngs appropriate way would be to have some some operator and to the right of that operator.

A

B

Function: okay,.

A

Yes, something like that yeah, but there's just too many nuances, so I uh meanwhile didn't do anything about this.

B

But then how how you would you pick so how would you pick the names out of the function to the rest of the environment here? Yes, this is anonymous.

A

The function will have inside the function. You will have them. So, yes,.

B

But you want to use them outside right.

A

Well, maybe not no, I mean well, you had okay, if you just zoom out a bit okay, so this destruction assignment is actually um a specific case of pattern matching and in other places, when we have pattern matching.

A

You have your pattern and then you have some piece of code which uses the matches and after that you don't have them, and it's quite okay in some places- and I was thinking if it's a function, maybe there should be some syntax, like in general, to have a function which doesn't have opening and closing curly braces, but actually takes the whole block from the function and down so you'll have not have nesting.

B

It's just weird, you know, because uh the problem of thinking a function there right is that, then you should keep the context of a function. If not, you know you are implementing a completely new concept that doesn't match. You know what the function should be.

A

B

A

B

You have this function that doesn't have curly braces right and then picks everything else. Yeah then.

A

B

Basically, you are basically, they know, let's say killing the concept of a function right, because the concept.

A

B

Means you should have the context right there uh so.

A

It will behave exactly like any other function, which was called immediately yeah.

B

A

Just it's just a syntactic sugar, but.

B

B

You know it would be better to assume that you have a special syntax for that right.

A

I don't know I don't know. I think that like composing the existing concepts, because if it's like this function, like that, you don't need any new- let's say it was with curly braces okay, so you will have just nest label for everything in here in this file, yeah.

B

A

Is also not that bad, uh but then you don't even have to have new syntax, you can add dot dot, I don't know, call wiz or whatever, and you pass this function as a callback and that's it. You don't need syntax at all and I like not having syntax at all or maybe just to use some existing operator here.

B

Yeah an operator maybe and but that's.

A

B

It's the same as having it on the left or on the right. What do you mean, but you really want to use the function, then that's what you say.

A

uh I'm thinking about this, I'm not 100 sure I right now. I think that all the solutions that they have they are not good solutions and that's why it takes so long because I don't think like not not any. One of them feels like 100 percent, correct.

B

Well, the one from javascript I like it, because you know it's just on the left side. You just do an array right. Yes,.

A

So having having that on the left side is convenient because you know where the variables are assigned. Yes, I agree with that. Yes,.

B

And maybe the only thing it misses is this thing to ignore the rest? Maybe you could have you know dot dot instead of a variable name, you would just have dot dot. That just ignores the rest. You.

B

You know it has to have the amount. The right amount of you know: okay,.

A

You know what uh it becomes a long discussion, so maybe maybe we can do it another time? Yes, uh maybe even after this- I don't know, let's, let's, let's, let's see when we do it, okay, so uh to the fun part: okay, so line 24 here, okay, there's curl, okay and dash I on the curl so dash I on the curl. That means also return headers. So now you have this headers empty line and the body okay. So what I thought would be cool and useful for other use.

A

Cases is to have bacteric, understand this and therefore pass the answer into a hedersen body.

B

Oh nice, which I did.

A

Which I did and now so you can see this later in this event,.

B

A

B

Headers, nice, okay,.

A

And there is also dot body dot body by the way, the.

B

A

Is json, so you have the cone jason here I considered making uh this the code to go uh to also descend into body and decode that okay.

B

A

Yeah and I decided against because it's coupling two like separate things and body doesn't have to be decodable anything. It could be arbitrary string. So didn't do that.

B

Well, for going to the code on the body right, you would have to check if the type of return would be json, then you could decode automatically. Otherwise you.

A

Should add is interesting idea? I don't know if I want to like go that deep.

A

That's something to think about I'll write this down.

B

Yeah, so you could see right by the header that returns right. It tells you the type and if it was application, I think it's yeah.

A

But the thing is that sometimes you don't have it and if you have this like.

B

Yeah, if you don't have it, you don't decode right, yeah,.

A

B

A

So while I was on it, I was also thinking so this event.headers.

A

uh This part, okay with um brackets and single, quotes in them, think alternative syntax do dot and then the string yeah.

B

A

B

Yeah there are some languages that do that, like javascript.

A

No, I don't think. Yes, you think.

B

No even objects right.

A

No, if you you know dude the dashes. The dashes is the problem, otherwise, the dot.

B

A

That one yeah that one yeah you're right yeah so here the syntax- is exactly exactly the same as in javascript, and I was thinking how about dot and then the uh quotes and the string in the psyche.

B

The problem is the quotes right. It's like yeah.

A

So I'll I'll write here, because I can okay so event, headers just.

B

B

I understand that you need these things because of the dashes. The question is: why do why can't we just have it without the quotes, so why can't.

A

It be minus, actually, the operator.

B

ah It will be operator.

A

The syntax is taken because it's a variable- these are variables that would be.

B

Variable names.

A

B

Yes- and it will.

A

Take a regular language here: it's not bash yeah.

B

Yes, yes, yes,.

A

B

It will be a minus to another variable yeah. You will kill himself yeah.

A

B

Oh yeah, then you know quotes, would be kind of weird, but I.

A

I think that if you like uh reset your mind and now ask arbitrary person on the street, which is, uh I don't know, beginner programming programmer and never heard about javascript or python or like any one of this, and you show this to syntaxes yeah. I think maybe is that person.

B

For this one, I guess it doesn't hurt if you still leave the other syntax, you know, because the array syntax is always there right. So it's fine.

A

You're, just adding.

B

An extra case for the dot yeah: that's why I'm not sure which is okay. You know you are just having another.

A

Then you have two syntaxes for the same.

B

Thing no, it's not two synthesis, it's one syntax and the other one is. It has to be like that because of the minus right.

B

A

So another long discussion.

B

A

So I also mentioned that I was thinking about destruction and pattern matching and I see destruction as like specific case of pattern matching, but it has to match otherwise it's an exception: okay, okay, so let's go some do some writing about python, but so because it's like about pattern matching so now one of the recent versions of python added pattern matching and they have syntax for pattern matching and you can.

A

You can match your pattern and then you have like named matches.

B

A

Can use them in in the chunk of code that you have uh so while it is like good feature of a language, uh and it was actually copied from other languages, and they also have it pretty much like that. I would like to maybe highlight the differences in in the approach.

A

Between ngs and other languages regarding the pattern matching so.

A

In ngs, I think that concepts must be composable, and that means that if you have pattern matching, you should be able to use it everywhere, not only when it's um one place specific syntax for that. So what do I mean by that?

A

uh Let's uh switch to terminal I'll share my terminal for a moment and I'll, give examples of what ngs is actually working with patterns and as opposed to a specific syntax in python and other languages share terminal hit term bash.

A

Okay, so nngs you have this um basic functional stuff like all. What does all do all checks if all elements of the array are matching uh something? So that's something in ngs is a pattern. Okay, so for example, and would be a pattern and guess what all these numbers on the left are integers, so that matches. So all the argument to all is a pattern.

A

Okay and you just don't- have it in other languages like that, unless, unless I didn't, I did miss in some language, but typically um in languages, you would get um this basic functional stuff. All any filter eject blah blah. They would have a predicate in here. Predicate a function like this, and so you would have to write something like that: x, isn't, okay, that would be the typical language in ngs. When I added patterns, I thought okay, which places should work with patterns, and I think it's like anywhere, where you have predicate.

A

There should be a support for a pattern, so, for example,.

A

A pattern can say that it must be a hash and it must have an entry with a and that value must be one guess what it's not a hash and it doesn't have entry a, but if you put here into a that, would work so all works with patterns and many functions in ngs work with patterns, as opposed to very limited implementation in other languages.

A

So that's one um kind of uh aspect of that. Another one is that patterns and js are not special syntax. They are just objects. That means that you can actually compose them like. um Okay, my pattern is a one right and then I can use it like this.

A

Okay and it's guess what composable? Okay. That also means that I can do you know what that was not enough. I had some other condition, and now I need to add something to p. Okay, no problem p will now also require entry b, which is two okay. So now it's false and b two now it's true okay, so I composed the pattern and you just can't do it in, for example, python.

A

um The downside of this approach, which I have now is that you know you don't have right now. I don't have a way at all to capture sub patterns.

A

And I I'll find a solution to that at some point. I'm thinking about this- it's not straightforward, but I think this is the more correct approach, because well, if you have patterns, why not have it everywhere in the language as opposed to one specific syntactic construct?

A

Okay, so another aspect worth mentioning that ngs has uh implicit pattern matching uh when you have multi methods. So, for example, we define a function. This function works with int and for int and returns one, and we define another function with the same name, which makes it a multi method.

A

That means um a method which has several implementations depend depending on the arguments, and here x is a string and for string it returns uh s.

A

Okay and now I have f of one that will be one and uh f of s would be yes, no, let's do x s still s, that's because it's s from here, okay, so I I thought it just worth mentioning that ngs already has kind of built in pattern matching, and that happens every time you call a multi method which is kind of all over.

A

uh So that's it for my side. For today, um if.

B

You remembered anything.

A

Else, ricardo, then you can go.

B

I'm putting this on the one-liners. Oh yeah,.

A

B

A

Screenshot, oh my yeah, okay, okay, so um I guess that would be all for today we are we're having whoa that was long, one. Okay, this.

B

Was ngs introduction one on one.

A

Ngs patterns introduction just london.

B

A

I think we should like make um you know on youtube. You can mark you know which section we were speaking about what so people can forward if they don't like wow. That was a big one. Okay, but you know you know what take that.

B

Next time, yeah.

A

Yeah um like and subscribe yeah, because if you don't.

A

A

Okay, uh I'll stop, recording uh so see you, everyone.