How to add new programming language

miry · January 2, 2021, 11:47pm

I would like to teach Ruby language with MakeCode.
How easy to support a new programming language?

darzu · January 2, 2021, 11:53pm

Probably ~2-12 months of full time effort depending on how complete you want to be.
If u want to utilize all existing libraries and features, we’d need a typescript->ruby decompiler and ruby->typescript compiler for the subset of ruby you care about. This is how py support works.

Examples:
.py -> .ts:

github.com

microsoft/pxt/blob/master/pxtpy/converter.ts

namespace pxt.py {
    import B = pxt.blocks;
    import SK = pxtc.SymbolKind

    interface Ctx {
        currModule: py.Module;
        currClass?: py.ClassDef;
        currFun?: py.FunctionDef;
        blockDepth: number;
    }

    interface OverrideTextPart {
        kind: "text";
        text: string;
    }

    interface OverrideArgPart {
        kind: "arg";
        index: number;
        isOptional: boolean;

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.ts -> .py:

github.com

microsoft/pxt/blob/master/pxtpy/pydecompiler.ts

namespace pxt.py {
    export function decompileToPython(program: ts.Program, filename: string): pxtc.CompileResult {
        let result = emptyResult()
        try {
            let output = tsToPy(program, filename)
            let outFilename = filename.replace(/(\.py)?\.\w*$/i, '') + '.py'
            result.outfiles[outFilename] = output;
        } catch (e) {
            if (e.pyDiagnostic) result.diagnostics = [e.pyDiagnostic];
            else pxt.reportException(e);

            result.success = false;
        }
        return result
    }
    function emptyResult(): pxtc.CompileResult {
        return {
            blocksInfo: undefined,
            outfiles: {},
            diagnostics: [],

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miry · January 3, 2021, 1:52am

Thank you for the fast reply. It is very helpful.