Custom programming language: how?

Question

Hopefully this question won't be too convoluted or vague. I know what I want in my head, so fingers crossed I can get this across in text.

I'm looking for a language with a syntax of my own specification, so I assume I will need to create one myself. I've spent the last few days reading about compilers, lexers, parsers, assembly language, virtual machines, etc, and I'm struggling to sort everything out in terms of what I need to accomplish my goals (file attached at the bottom with some specifications). Essentially, I'm deathly confused as to what tools specifically I will need to use to go forward.

A little background: the language made would hopefully be used to implement a multiplayer, text-based MUD server. Therefore, it needs easy inbuilt functionality for creating/maintaining client TCP/IP connections, non-blocking IO, database access via SQL or similar. I'm also interested in security insofar as I don't want code that is written for this language to be able to be stolen and used by the general public without specialist software. This probably means that it should compile to object code

So, what are my best options to create a language that fits these specifications

My conclusions are below. This is just my best educated guess, so please contest me if you think I'm heading in the wrong direction. I'm mostly only including this to see how very confused I am when the experts come to make comments.

1. For code security, I should want a language that compiles and is run in a virtual machine. If I do this, I'll have a hell of a lot of work to do, won't I? Write a virtual machine, assembler language on the lower-level, and then on the higher-level, code libraries to deal with IO, sockets, etc myself, rather than using existing modules?

2. I'm just plain confused.

3. I'm not sure if I'm making sense.

If anyone could settle my brain even a little bit, I'd sincerely appreciate it! Alternatively, if I'm way off course and there's a much easier way to do this, please let me know!

Answer 1

Designing a custom domain-specific programming language is the right approach to a problem. Actually, almost all the problems are better approached with DSLs. Terms you'd probably like to google are: domain specific languages and language-oriented programming.

Some would say that designing and implementing a compiler is a complicated task. It is not true at all. Implementing compilers is a trivial thing. There are hordes of high-quality compilers available, and all you need to do is to define a simple transform from your very own language into another, or into a combination of the other languages. You'd need a parser - it is not a big deal nowdays, with Antlr and tons of homebrew PEG-based parser generators around. You'd need something to define semantics of your language - modern functional programming langauges shines in this area, all you need is something with a support for ADTs and pattern matching. You'd need a target platform. There is a lot of possibilities: JVM and .NET, C, C++, LLVM, Common Lisp, Scheme, Python, and whatever else is made of text strings.

There are ready to use frameworks for building your own languages. Literally, any Common Lisp or Scheme implementation can be used as such a framework. LLVM has all the stuff you'd need too. .NET toolbox is ok - there is a lot of code generation options available. There are specialised frameworks like this one for building languages with complex semantics.

Choose any way you like. It is easy. Much easier than you can imagine.