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Emerald

Roadmap

Emerald is in active 0.x development. This page says where it is and where it is going. These are plans, not promises: the order can change, and the bigger items are still being decided.

Today

Section titled “Today”

Emerald is an interpreter with the whole language: functions, optionals, collections, structs, classes, traits, enums, typed errors, projects, tests, and a standard library with files, dates and times, regular expressions, JSON, CSV, HTTP, and more. It comes with a formatter, a REPL, and a language server. Releases are listed on GitHub.

Next

Section titled “Next”
  • The 0.7 release. Console tables, panels, and prompts, a clearer error when input ends, and tasks and channels: a way to let work wait at the same time without threads, locks, async, or await. These are already written, and the reference documents them, but they are not in a release yet.
  • A better REPL. The current one replays your whole session on every line, so a file write or a web request would happen again. The new one will keep the session alive, and show the result of every expression, as people expect.
  • Better editor support. Completion and hover already work, but they are shallow for the built-in types. They will learn what a List, a String, or a Task can do.
  • A quality pass. A deliberate round of using Emerald the way a new person would, fixing the rough edges and unhelpful messages found along the way.

Later

Section titled “Later”
  • A real compiler. Emerald’s static types are what make a fast language possible, and a native compiler is what Emerald 1.0 needs. How to build it, and on what, is still being decided, and will be settled by building prototypes.
  • Networking. Sockets, and a web server to build on, using the same tasks that already let each connection run on its own.
  • A package manager. A way to share Emerald code and use other people’s, with versions.
  • Multicore. Running tasks at the same time on several processor cores, once the compiler is chosen.

What is not planned

Section titled “What is not planned”

Emerald leaves things out on purpose, so that what it has stays easy to learn and to read. It does not plan to add null, operator spellings such as && and || alongside and and or, or several ways to write the same thing. Ideas to improve what is there are welcome on GitHub.