The Mellifera Interpreter Now Runs In Your Browser

Mellifera, my scripting language featuring value semantics, now runs in your web browser! Seriously, try it now - click the run button under the script below and you should see "hello 🐝" printed to the output text area.

This isn't a magic trick either! All of the program input textboxes on this page are editable. Try changing the year value in the program below, and then hit the run button just below the program textbox to see different outputs for different year values.

Ashley

Oh hey that's me! This seems cool and all, but could you explain what exactly we are looking at here? And what is the big deal about this thing running the browser?

Great questions! Okay, so we are looking at Mellifera, a programming language that I have been working on in my free time for a few months now. Mellifera exists in the same family as languages like Awk or Perl: it is a batteries-included scripting language designed for solving problems quickly from the command line.

For a long time, the only way one could execute a Mellifera program was from the command line using mf, the native Mellifera interpreter.

$ cat fizzbuzz.mf
assert(argv.count() == 2);
for i in number::init(argv[1]) {
    let n = i + 1;
    if n % 3 == 0 and n % 5 == 0 {
        println("fizzbuzz");
        continue;
    }
    if n % 3 == 0 {
        println("fizz");
        continue;
    }
    if n % 5 == 0 {
        println("buzz");
        continue;
    }
    println(n);
}
$ mf fizzbuzz.mf 15
1
2
fizz
4
buzz
fizz
7
8
fizz
buzz
11
fizz
13
14
fizzbuzz

However, I have been porting the Mellifera interpreter from Python to Go over the last couple of months, something I talked about a bit in another blog post: The Mellifera Master Plan To Improve Performance And Portability. Well that port is now complete! The Mellifera interpreter is now faster, more portable, and much more enjoyable to iterate on from my perspective as a language developer. One of the big benefits of this port to Go is that the interpreter core can now be compiled to WebAssembly. This allows us to use the same code written in Go for the native Mellifera interpreter, mf, and for a special build of the interpreter running in the web browser as part of this page.

Ashley

Well congrats on finishing that port from Python to Go, but I am still a bit confused. You mentioned that Mellifera is intended for command line scripting. I don't consider myself much of a web developer, but this webpage is about the furthest thing from the command line that I can think of. Can I use Mellifera as a replacement for JavaScript or something?

Well... um... no not really. Actually, you can't use Mellifera for much of anything in the browser at the moment. There is a dedicated interpreter page for messing around with Mellifera programs in the browser. But that is about it. At the time of writing, Mellifera in the browser doesn't have access to the DOM, can't be used for any sort of graphics or sound output a-la browser games, and probably has a bunch of hidden bugs stemming from differences in the Go desktop and web builds that I have not yet uncovered.

Ashley

You know you're not doing a great job of selling this thing? Why the heck would anyone want to use this language in their browser right now?

Okay so here is the deal. I will admit that Mellifera is not the best fit for a browser environment at the moment. However, this port still has me really amped up, and I'll tell you why.

First off, getting this sort of thing to run in a browser is just cool (😎). Mellifera is my for-fun special interest side project, and a lot of my motivation to work on the language and tooling is fueled by the discoveries and learning moments I experience while messing around and trying out new things. I get this huge motivation boost and dopamine release just from taking something intended for the command line and jamming it into an unexpected environment. Getting Mellifera to run in the browser taught me a lot of neat stuff about Go and WebAssembly, and that is reason enough for me to be excited.

More importantly, this WebAssembly build opens the door for individuals who may not have access to a computer that can run Mellifera from the command line. My ultimate goal with Mellifera (if I ever get there) is to use the language as a tool to teach the fundamentals of programming. I currently work for a non-profit helping to bring tech education to underrepresented groups in and around my city, and I spend a lot of time thinking about tech education and outreach. I believe that Mellifera could offer a great deal of value to first-time programmers with its minimal surface area and use of value semantics. But a programming language is not going to be very useful as a teaching tool if that language is not accessible to students. And surprise surprise, a lot of the students we work with don't have access to a conventional desktop operating system, let alone a Unix-flavored command line interface. I want Mellifera to be accessible from locked down school Chromebook, from the guest login on a library computer, or from a smart phone. Making Mellifera accessible to those students means meeting them where they are at, and in some cases the browser is pretty much the best programming environment we are going to get.

So the real reason I am excited about this WebAssembly build of Mellifera is because it represents the first step towards bringing accessible educational content to students who have been historically left behind by tech education sphere.

Ashley

Oh well that makes more sense then. It sounds like there is a lot of work to do, but I can see why you are excited. Again, congrats on getting Mellifera to run in the browser. It will be interesting to see how things develop as the language continues to mature.

Thank you! There is a lot of work to do, but there are no deadlines for this project, so I am looking forward to making steady improvements to the language and its web port at my own pace. 😊