Using Lopolith

This track takes you from a fresh checkout to a small multi-threaded program. Every chapter ends with something you can run.

What you need

• A C toolchain and a POSIX system (Linux, macOS, BSD).
• A text editor. There is no IDE, no build file format, no package manager.

$ make            # builds ./loth
$ make libs       # builds lib/Std.so and lib/Thread.so
$ ./loth run hello.loth

The running example

Chapters 5–10 build one small program: a task list with a worker thread that marks everything done. Each chapter explains the pieces it uses; the complete program is shown across the chapters.

Chapters

• 01 Getting started — build, run, and the command line.
• 02 Program structure — files, directives, imports, visibility, %sub.
• 03 Types and values — primitives, conversions, arrays, strings, null.
• 04 Control flow — if, loops, switch, jumps.
• 05 Classes and singletons — fields, methods, constructors, %simple, %sub.
• 06 Interfaces and polymorphism — bindings, default methods, class tokens.
• 07 Generics and operators — native generic slots, operator overloading, equality.
• 08 Exceptions — throw, try/catch/finally, custom exceptions.
• 09 Std and packaging — printing, formatting, .lothc modules.
• 10 Concurrency — threads, synchronized, volatile, Lock, Cond.

Where to go next

• Embedding the VM — host Lopolith from C.
• Writing native plugins — implement %native classes in C.