firefly-boot

This is a bootstrap transpiler for converting Firefly code to JavaScript code.

Status: Firefly has been bootstrapped and now transpiles itself into JavaScript.

You can create a whole webapp (frontend+backend) in a single file and it can be build as an executable for linux, windows and osx.

See an example webapp

Async/await inference: https://www.ahnfelt.net/async-await-inference-in-firefly/

Running a main file

firefly.sh MyApp.ff

You must stand in the project directory when running this command.

This will run main or nodeMain in MyApp.ff.

If there is a buildMain(system: BuildSystem) method, it will be run before main, and if it calls system.setAssets(assets), those assets will be available to the main file via system.assets().

You can also have a browserMain(system: BrowserSystem) in the file, which can be compiled to a browser JS-file and included as an asset.

Missing dependencies are fetched from the central or configured package repository before building and running.

Building an executable

firefly.sh build MyApp.ff

You must stand in the project directory when running this command.

This will generate a stand-alone executable file MyApp with the necessary assets and dependencies, compatible with most linux distributions, windows and osx.

If there is a buildMain(system: BuildSystem) method, it will be run before producing the executables, and if it calls system.setAssets(assets), those assets will be included in the executables and thus be available to the main file via system.assets().

Building for the browser

firefly.sh browser MyApp.ff

You must stand in the project directory when running this command.

This generates a single, minified MyApp.min.js, compatible with all modern browsers (ES6+).

Bootstrapping the compiler

firefly.sh bootstrap

You must stand in the project directory when running this command.

If you botch the compiler, just roll back the output directory and try again.

Dependencies and imports

You may list your dependencies either in the top of the main file or in .firefly/package.ff.

In order to establish a package directory, and thus allow importing other files from the current package, you must place a .firefly/package.ff file.

Example (all lines optional):

package john:stuff:0.1.7
dependency anne:goodies:2.1.0
dependency chris:images:0.7.0

You don't have to manually install dependencies - they will be automatically downloaded when necessary.

Workspaces

You may place a .firefly-workspace file somewhere in a parent directory.

The workspace file configures where source code is fetched from.

It can be a local directory or a remote repository.

Example:

foo:stuff projects/foo/stuff
bar:* projects/foo
* https://example.com/repository