Show HN: I'm 17 and wrote a guide on how to build your own programming language

Hey! I’m JC. I’m 17 and part of Hack Club, a nonprofit where we help teenagers ship programming projects with their friends while growing technically.

A while ago, I asked myself the question, “How exactly do programming languages work behind the scenes?” It seemed really daunting until I went to a half hour workshop at a high school hackathon about writing a tree-walk interpreter and realized that getting started was actually super fun.

This guide is designed in the vein of that - to get people, especially teenagers, started on learning how to build a programming language in a literal weekend by actually shipping one. It’s a stepping stone for learning the big things - compilers, optimizations for performance, etc. It’s very inspired by Crafting Interpreters and why’s poignant guide, but meant to be approachable in a weekend.

Some backstory on me: A year ago I finished high school early and joined Hack Club full-time to build projects like this. I’ve been programming since COVID, and learned how to code primarily by shipping things that seemed daunting to me and taking inspiration from people taking the time to break down various topics online.

Give it a try and take it out for a spin! Constructive feedback is also really appreciated.

It’s open source on GitHub at https://github.com/hackclub/easel

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40378983

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https://easel.hackclub.com/orpheus-finds-easel