Chara design ideas

chara.md

Design goals

• Perfect C compatibility

  • Every C type is a Chara type and vice versa
  • Use a similar compilation model

• Stay simple: don't add super advanced features like C++ or Rust

• Clean up C cruft

  • Undefined integer overflow
    • Make overflow behavior configurable, twos complement by default
  • The pre-processor sucks
    • Replace it with hygenic macros and attributes, like Rust
    • Procedural macros via IPC
  • Semicolons
    • Make semicolons unnecessary, like Go
  • Evaluation order is undefined
    • Top to bottom, left to right
  • Assignment operators can be chained
    • a = b is a statement
  • Prefix vs postfix increment is confusing
    • a++ is a statement; ++a is invalid syntax
  • Number promotion rules are confusing
    • Make all casts explicit