Getting started with JetBrains Nitra
timjones.tw
timjones.tw
The focus is slightly different: Rascal focuses more on automated code transformations and less on being a syntax highlighting service for editors. But Rascal is remarkably powerful and surprisingly accessible.
Basically, Rascal allows you to build Lispy macros in any language. Or to easily parse-and-transform new languages. Or to design entirely new languages and transpile them into something existing. To drive the point home, CoffeeScript, Nimrod and Sass could've easily been built with Rascal.
I wonder, what is the primary reason you believe a tool like Rascal couldn't be the engine behind the Nimrod compiler?
(btw, I didn't mean to imply that making the Nimrod compiler is easy in any language - I guess the "easy" word applies more to CoffeeScript and Sass in my previous comment)
Regarding the word "transpile" - that was long the common name given to e.g. the CoffeeScript compiler and only recently got out of fashion for obvious reasons. Mind that not everyone who uses an outdated term is entirely clueless. :-)
Yeah, I've seen tweets saying they're working on the type system right now, and it will arrive in milestone 2; if it's done right, that's a big area where Nitra can differentiate itself from other parser generators.
Awesome project nevertheless.
Whether it happens or not probably depends on how JetBrains themselves plan to use Nitra; hopefully they intend to use it in their cross-platform products.