Getting started meant cloning the repository, bootstrapping a compiler and
learning a task runner called `x`. That is a contributor's workflow handed to
everyone who wants to try the language.
Installing is now one command:
curl -fsSL https://workshopsoft.pages.workshopsoft.io/ludic/install.sh | sh
install.sh puts a complete toolchain — compiler, CLI, engine runtime, bundled
ludic.* packages, formatter, language server — in ~/.ludic and adds it to PATH.
Prebuilt artifacts are checksum-verified; where a platform has none, or the
release predates this layout, it bootstraps from the compiler's own IR seed with
clang. The docs site publishes the script beside the pages that quote it, so the
page and the script can never come from different releases.
`x` becomes `ludic`, and the surface splits by audience. A user of the language
sees `new`, `run`, `build`, `test`, `add`, `fmt`, `lsp`, `doctor`, `upgrade`;
`ludic new` scaffolds a project that builds and plays as it stands. Everything
the toolchain repo needs moved under `ludic dev` — build, test, reseed,
bootstrap-cfree, docs-gen, release — unchanged apart from the namespace. Those
tasks read arguments one position further along, so dispatch_dev sets a shift
and commands use arg_n()/arg_total() rather than each knowing its own depth.
Release artifacts become complete install roots (bin/ beside runtime/, packages/
and VERSION) rather than bare binaries, which is what the installer unpacks.
`ludic dev test` asserts the whole shape: it stages an install, puts it on PATH
with no LUDIC_HOME, and runs new -> build -> test through it.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
A `test "name" { ... }` top-level block is discovered automatically and run by a
synthetic runner @main — no `entry` to write, nothing to register. Inside a test,
expect(cond) / expect_eq(a, b) / expect_near(a, b, tol) assert; on failure they
print `file:line: <what> failed (got G, want W)` and set a per-test fail flag but
keep going, so one run reports every failure. The runner prints `ok - name` /
`FAIL - name` per test, a `== N passed, M failed ==` summary, and exits non-zero
if any test failed — so `ludic spec_test.ludic` drops straight into bin/x and CI.
expect_near carries the tolerance fixed-point / accumulated-integer game math need.
Frontend: new `test` keyword (parse_test -> N_TEST, collected in g_tests) and the
call node now carries its source line for the file:line messages. Backend:
emit_test_runner synthesises @fn__test_i bodies + the runner @main; the expect*
builtins lower to a branch-print-flag tail (emit_expect_fail). g_src_name (set in
main from the input path) supplies the filename. The compiler's own source has no
`test` blocks, so its self-compiled IR is unchanged and the C-free fixpoint holds.
- `test` wired into the vocabulary (ludic_syntax.h, JetBrains lexer, TextMate
grammar) and documented (docs/language/testing/)
- examples/library/testing.ludic: a passing spec, guarded by a new spec_case in
the regression suite (build, run, require exit 0 + the expected summary)
Coverage instrumentation (the biggest lift in #12) is left as a follow-up.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
