| layout | title | section | position |
|---|---|---|---|
page |
Contributing |
contributing |
4 |
Yay, we are happy that you want to contribute to the language. Here is how you get started:
While this document might age and outdate, the most current and up-to-date instructions can be found in the Github Workflows file. This might be a bit tricky to read but contains all necessary information.
If you notice that something does not work as expected, please consider opening an issue. Also feel free to update this page on Github and opening a pull request.
You need to have the following software installed to build and use Effekt:
- JDK >= 1.8 and Maven
- sbt (https://www.scala-sbt.org)
- Node.js (>= 10) and npm
Why three package management tools? The main build tool we use is Effekt, but we use Maven to extract dependencies and aggregate license files of the library dependencies. Finally, we use npm simply as a way to deploy the language as an npm-package.
Additionally, since Effekt uses Scala.js to compile to JavaScript, you also need a Scala.js compatible fork of
- the Kiama library https://github.com/b-studios/kiama
Once you have sbt installed, you can obtain and build the fork as follows:
git clone [email protected]:b-studios/kiama.git
cd kiama
git checkout scala-js
sbt publishLocal
Great, you made it so far! We can finally compile the Effekt project. For this enter the sbt terminal:
sbt
sbt:root> project effektJVM
sbt:effekt> test
...
As mentioned before, the Effekt compiler can be run as a java program, but
also as a Scala program. Hence, we need a slightly complicate
Cross-build setup
with two projects effektJVM and effektJS.
The Effekt binary is actually just a simple wrapper that invokes java -jar effekt.jar.
To generate the jar-file and assembly everything simply run:
sbt deploy
Afterwards, you can find the effekt.jar in the bin/ folder.
The Effekt standard library is still in its infancy. If you want to work on it, we recommend the following workflow:
Create a test file in examples that uses your new / improved library module, like
module examples/mynewmoduletester
import io/mynewmodule
def main() = mynewfunction()
Open sbt and run
sbt
sbt:root> project effektJVM
sbt:effekt> run examples/mynewmoduletester.effekt
...
This makes sure that you are always interacting with the most up-to-date version of the standard library you are currently working on.