Fast and Easy ASTs for Flexible Embedded Interpreters

Explore a conference presentation that demonstrates how abstract syntax trees can be efficiently incorporated into embedded interpreter source code across multiple programming languages. Learn about a novel engineering approach that enables textually identical ASTs to remain valid across diverse contemporary programming languages, from Java and JavaScript to Haskell, Swift, and even Excel. Discover how this technique addresses the bootstrapping challenges faced by traditional AST-based systems, particularly when portability across multiple host systems is required. Examine the key insight that carefully engineered AST formats can enable language self-hosting with minimal bootstrapping infrastructure, requiring only the host interpreter or compiler and a basic default library while importing the rest of the system as ASTs. Analyze the engineering design tradeoffs necessary for practical implementation and review validation through the ongoing development of GraceKit, which successfully shares a single Grace parser across multiple host language implementations. Understand how this approach offers advantages over bytecode interpreters and image-based systems for creating flexible, portable language implementations in embedded environments.