The Gom Programming Language

Gom is a statically typed, compiled programming language based on a subset of TypeScript's syntax. Imagine writing TypeScript, but instead of compiling to JavaScript, it compiles to LLVM IR which can then be compiled directly to machine code.

Here’s a typical hello world program in Gom:

import io;

function main() {
	io.log("Hello, world!");
}

The main function is the entry point to the program, similar to other statically-typed languages. log is the standard library function to print content to the console.

Simple arithmetic and function declaration looks like this:

import io;

function add(a: int, b: int): int {
	return a + b;
}

function main() {
	io.log("Sum:", add(1, 2)); // Prints "Sum: 3"
}

Defining complex data structures is possible via the type keyword. let is the variable declaration keyword, it infers type from the expression on the right hand side of =.

import io;

// List
type Numbers = [int];

// Struct
type Temperature = {
	high: int,
	low: int,
	avg: int
};

function main() {
	let a = 1; // type inferred as int
	io.log("a: ", a);

	let temperature = Temperature {
		high: 32,
		low: 26,
		avg: 29
	};

	io.log("Average temperature: ", temperature.avg);

	let numbers = Numbers { 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 };
	for (let i = 0; i < numbers.length; i = i + 1) {
		io.log("Number at index ", i, " is ", numbers[i]);
	}
}

Other types can be defined using the type keyword.

type Count = int;
type Name = str;

// Struct
type Person = {
	name: Name,
	age: Count
};

// Tuple
type Tuple = { int, bool };

// List
type Numbers = [int];

// List of structs
type People = [Person];

Gom supports a set of global functions that operate on lists.

import io;

type Numbers = [int];

function main() {
	let numbers = Numbers { 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 };
	io.log("Numbers length: ", numbers.length);

	// Push an element to the list
	push(numbers, 6);
	io.log("After push: ", numbers.length);

	// Pop an element from the list
	let last = pop(numbers);
	io.log("Popped element: ", last);
	io.log("After pop: ", numbers.length);
}

Development Status

Stage	Status
Base grammar definition	✅ Done
Lexical Analysis	✅ Done
Syntactic Analysis (parsing)	✅ Done
Semantic Analysis & preliminary type system	✅ Done
LLVM IR Generation	✅ Done
Complex data structures - structs	✅ Done
Complex data structures - lists	✅ Done
Modules	⏳ Not started

Trying out Gom

The src/index.ts file is the entry point for the Gom compiler. To execute the compiler, clone and set up the repository locally:

npm install

To compile a Gom program, run:

npm run compile examples/readme.gom llvm
# then run the generated executable
./examples/readme

Updates

https://github.com/gom-lang/gom/commits/main/