Atlas 77 Language Roadmap

Current Version

Atlas 77 is currently in early development (v0.7.1). The compiler and runtime are functional but not production-ready. Expect breaking changes and API modifications.

Atlas77 Roadmap Update

Note

This roadmap is subject to change as development progresses. The focus areas and features listed are planned but may evolve based on community feedback and technical considerations. It also only talks about the future of Atlas77.

v0.7.x Covenant

Already released This is the next major milestone and is actively being worked on.

Focus areas:

• Introduction of move/copy semantics to enable safer code and automatic scope cleanup
• Rework of the _copy constructor semantics
• Expansion and stabilization of parts of the standard library
• Introduction of memcpy<T>(&T) -> T for explicit shallow copies
• Addition of a HIR pretty printer to inspect the output of the compiler after the last HIR pass.

Planned v0.7.x breakdown (subject to change)

To give more visibility into the expected progression of the v0.7 series, the current intent is roughly:

v0.7.0

• Initial release based on the current ownership and move/copy work
• Content largely matching what is present in the current PR: https://github.com/atlas77-lang/atlas77/pull/141

v0.7.1

Already released

• Complete rework of the _copy constructor semantics
• Introduction of std::copyable and std::non_copyable flags on structs to make copy behavior explicit

Similar to how Rust does #[derive(Copy)] to make a struct copyable. In Atlas77 it will be a bit different, std::copyable will force a struct to be copyable (if possible) but you don’t have to add std::copyable for a struct to be copyable by default, it just forces the compiler to try. std::non_copyable will prevent a struct from being copyable even if all its fields are copyable.

v0.7.2

Currently in development

• Introduction of constraints on methods of generic structs, based on the generic parameters of the struct

  Example: Vector<T>.foo() may only exist if T satisfies std::copyable

Other planned v0.7.x features (not strictly tied to a specific sub-release)

• Compiler recover from certain errors and continue processing to provide more complete diagnostics
• Improvements to error messages and diagnostics

v0.8.x

This release will focus on runtime and execution model changes, including:

• Reworking the VM from stack-based to register-based
• Moving toward a typed VM
• Improving the heap with more realistic allocation behavior

v0.7 and v0.8 are the only releases that are currently clearly scoped and planned in this order.

Beyond v0.8.x

Everything after v0.8 is not set in stone, both in scope and in scheduling. These are directions rather than commitments:

• v0.9.x: package system improvements, namespacing (std::foo::bar), larger std, package manager
• v0.10.x: optimization passes (DCE, constant folding, inlining, loop unrolling, etc.), likely introduced incrementally
• v0.11.x: higher-level language features (operator overloading, traits/interfaces, generic methods, constraints)
• v1.0.x: undecided; possibly bootstrapping, possibly something else entirely