This is misleading. Having done a great deal of both (as jank also supports C++ codegen as an alternative to IR), if the input is a fully analyzed AST, generating IR is significantly more error prone than generating C++. Why? Well, C++ is statically typed and one can enable warnings and errors for all sorts of issues. LLVM IR has a verifier, but it doesn't check that much. Handling references, pointers, closures, ABI issues, and so many more things ends up being a huge effort for IR.
For example, want to access the `foo.bar` member of a struct? In IR, you'll need to access foo, which may require loading it if it's a reference. You'll need to calculate the offset to `bar`, using GEP. You'll need to then determine if you're returning a reference to `bar` or if a copy is happening. Referencing will require storing a pointer, whereas copying may involve a lot more code. If we're generating C++, though, we just take `foo` and add a `.bar`. The C++ compiler handles the rest and will tell us if we messed anything up.
If you're going to hand wave and say anything that's building strings is error prone and unsafe, regardless of how richly typed and thoroughly analyzed the input is, the stance feels much less genuine.
I'm a bit surprised I've seen two articles about jank here the last 2 days if these are exemplars of the technical approach and communication style. Seems like that wouldn't be enough to get on people's radars.
On re-read, I recognize where it is used in the article:
"jank is C++. There is no runtime reflection, no guess work, and no hints. If the compiler can't find a member, or a function, or a particular overload, you will get a compiler error."
I assume other interop scenarios don't pull this off*, thus it is distinctive. Additionally, I'm not at all familiar with Clojure, sadly, but it also sounds like there's some special qualities there ("I think that this is an interesting way to start thinking about jank, Clojure, and static types")
Now I'll riff and just write out the first 3-5 titles that come to mind with that limited understanding:
- Implementing compile-time verifiable C++ interop in jank
- Sparks of C++ interop: jank, Clojure, & verifying interop before runtime
- jank's progress on C++ interop
- Safe C++ interop lessons from jank
* for example, I write a lot of Dart day to day and rely on Dart's "FFI" implementation to call C++, which now that I'm thinking about, only works because there's a code generator that creates "Dart headers" (my term) for the C++ libraries. I could totally footgun and call arbitrary functions that don't exist.
jank is written in C++. Its compiler and runtime are both in C++. jank can compile to C++ directly (or LLVM IR). jank can reach into C++ seamlessly, which includes reaching into its own compiler/runtime. Thus, the boundary between what is C++ and what is Clojure is gone, which leaves jank as being both Clojure and C++.
Achieving this singularity is a milestone for jank and, I think, is worthy of the title.