How to Write a Programming Language

Discover the fundamentals of creating a programming language interpreter in this ACCU 2017 conference talk by Andy Balaam. Learn how to build a simple yet functional language called Cell, implemented in Python. Explore the key components of language design, including lexical analysis, parsing, and evaluation. Walk through the concise codebase of Cell's lexer (40 lines), parser (81 lines), and evaluator (92 lines) to understand the core concepts behind language implementation. Gain insights into detecting symbols and literals, constructing abstract syntax trees, evaluating logic, and developing a standard library of basic functions and structures. Suitable for programmers with no prior experience in language design, this talk assumes basic familiarity with Python or any other programming language.