A language and a semantic source-to-source compiler.
Skrull is a Rust-like language (currently a subset of Rust).
Unlike Rust, it is designed NOT to give low level access to underlying OS or architecture.
Indeed, it doesn't and won't support unsafe code, pointers and FFI.
Actually it won't even give access to external resources at all 🙂 (no println for instance).
It also aim to be lazily compilable, i.e. to compile very fast in dev mode but to allow costly and
very efficient optimizations; therefore, macros won't be supported too 😊. However, it still focuses
on zero-cost abstractions so static types and analysis will remain.
I didn't say it couldn't interact with the outside world, just that the std/compiler won't give such access
:wink:. Skrull is a source-to-source compiler, therefore it can still access external resources via
dependencies injection, where dependency implementation is written in the target language (e.g. Java ou
TypeScript). The big advantage is that it makes Skrull safe by design, even for the developer (supply-chain
attacks not possible by design). Also, the source-to-source design makes it even safer as it becomes easy
to understand what a program does really. Oh and, by the way, the source-to-source compiler in this
project is #![no_std], with no unsafe code, no dependencies, just plain Rust code
(the clap dependency is only for the skrull CLI).
It's less obvious than a println indeed, but Skrull is mainly for high-level, business logic, not for
low-level files manipulations and so on. Skrull best shine for sharing business logic across multiple
parts of the application, especially one written in different languages like Java and TypeScript for
the back-end and front-end, respectively. It then shines for protocols too: (de)serialization written
in Skrull works in all supported target languages, so there's only one source of truth for protocol
implementation.
Skrull is still highly experimental, there's no download button yet, sorry. However, you
can clone the project and run cargo run -- --help to use the CLI. You can fine some examples
in tests across the project (e.g. this one is interesting).
A lot of features are missing, I work on them when I have time so don't expect Skrull to become production-ready anytime soon. It's an experimental, personal project I wrote mainly to test ideas I have. Don't hesitate to open a discussion thread if you're interested 🙂.
MIT