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Language Showcase: C3

C3 is a C-like language striving to be an evolution of C, rather than
a completely new language.

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Jeaye Wilkerson
3 hr ago
  
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C3 is a systems programming language based on C. It's an evolution of
C enabling the same paradigms and retaining the same syntax as far as
possible. For today's language showcase, C3's developer, Christoffer
Lerno, talks about what makes it tick.

 
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How would you describe C3 to the average programmer?
 

C3 is an evolution of C: "what could C look like if backwards
compatibility wasn't a concern?". The main additions are modules,
slices and semantic macros, but otherwise it tries to stay close to
the look-and-feel of C. Most importantly, it is ABI compatible with C
everywhere, meaning functions in C3 are by default callable from C
and vice versa.

    -----------------------------------------------------------------
   
    You don't have to rewrite everything in C3, you can pick and
    choose.

    -----------------------------------------------------------------

Which problems is C3 trying to solve?
 

C has the burden of backwards compatibility and while it's possible
to add features on top, it's hard to make them nicely integrated in
the overall language. Some parts of C (in particular string handling
and arrays) aren't very ergonomic and makes the language seem harder
to use than it needs to be. So it's about making C programming more
accessible and less punishing by providing better tools for the pain
points in C.

Thanks for reading Compiler Spotlight! Subscribe for free to hear
about new language showcases.

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What makes C3 unique?
 

I don't know if it is! There are a couple of "C replacement
languages" in development right now: Odin, Jai, Zig and Hare to name
a few. What they have in common is that they diverge quite a bit from
C syntax and semantics.

    -----------------------------------------------------------------
   
    C3 is different: you can just lift your C code with just a few
    changes into C3 and have it run as expected.

    -----------------------------------------------------------------

What are some of the toughest challenges with building C3?
 

I'd love to have more people invested in the project with strong
language design sensibilities to bounce ideas off. I love a good
argument to be able to narrow down on the essentials of a feature.
Luckily there are forums for budding programming language designers
to trade ideas which helps. But that's not quite the same as having
someone who really wants to help one YOUR language.

The programming is the easy part.

What's next for C3?
 

Work on expanding the standard library, I'd like to reach the point
where people can feel it has all the necessary basics.

Where can people learn more?
 

The docs can be found at https://www.c3-lang.org and the compiler can
be found on Github: https://github.com/c3lang/c3c

Which languages inspired yours the most?
 

C2, by Bas van den Berg. My first compiler work was actually
contributing to the C2 compiler! While Bas wanted a more modest
feature set on top of C, I thought more ideas should be tested, and
initially C3 was just C2 + some more features. When I decided to
write a compiler for my ideas, I picked the name C3 to acknowledge
its origins.

Program comparison: arithmetic
 

Prompt: Implement a program which takes in a single string from stdin
containing a basic arithmetic expression, such as "1 + 2 - 5",
evaluate it, and print the result.

 
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