ID:2215986
 
I have not announced it in the forums till now. However, I have recently had discussions of potentially building an alternative compiler to the one used right now by Dream Maker. Initially, plans were to build a compiler without some of the bugs found in the official compiler.

These plans came about due to an interesting project I worked on in reference to reverse engineering. Only some know of this particular project (mainly ones who hang around on BYOND Discord). One potential application for this project is to build a new and alternative compiler. Recently, I did some experiments by handcoding/injecting code into existing DMB files to test out some very interesting concepts. This gave an interesting idea of creating a superset of DM. In order to make this superset work, it would require a new compiler.

I and some others have contemplated operator overloading. In fact, I have some general ideas on how to make it work. However, I may also respond to an old request another has made in response to that. This could serve great applications dealing with datum-based objects and possibly the client. One could even add support for function objects.

Another possible feature that comes from the suggestions of others is to add inlined procedure support. This one shouldn't be too hard to implement, as long there is sufficient instruction space (64K still being the limit). Just use a particular inline keyword or possibly a setting.

If this project gets approval, I would like to make it community run (possibly on GitHub). For that reason, I will choose some contributors (more than likely those who have experience in multiple programming languages). There is a good chance it might be developed in C# since I know a larger percentage of programmers on her know that language over those who know C++.

Feel free to respond here. Remember to keep it civil. :P

P.S.: This compiler should still compile bytecode to achieve full compatibility with the official Dream Seeker.
Hm, seems to be a lot of people asking about alternative tools lately -- maybe enough to consider open sourcing? ;)

(inb4 "BYOND Rebirth Resurection of the Shinobi 3")
Approval from? Lummox?
Yeah, I'm actually working on seeking approval from Lummox JR. Reason for that is because the project I plan to use with it uses reverse engineered information (which will no doubt require approval, especially if a project like this goes public). That project being the BYOND File Handler (a DLL/SO based solution that started out as a C++ project and I'm now working on a C# build of it). It already contains most of the DMB core (for analysis and creation, but does not decompile). Also contains the RSC core (but only unencrypted for good reasons). DMM core isn't in yet.

What I mean community run, I definitely am considering open source at least for the compiler.