Bootstrapping the Compiler

DEPRECATION NOTICE: Please do not edit this wiki. Instead submit pull requests to https://github.com/clojure/clojurescript-site

The up to date version of this page can be found at https://clojurescript.org/reference/bootstrapping

See https://github.com/swannodette/cljs-bootstrap

Current status:

• ClojureScript can now compile both its analyzer & compiler w/o errors. Can eval non-trivial ClojureScript exprs from within the JS host.

• Performance reading, analysis & compilation within bootstrapped ClojureScript has been optimized to be roughly within a factor of 2 of ClojureScript JVM (varying perf between engines).

• Master is successfully being used in various contexts:

  • cljs-bootstrap
  • Node.js REPL
  • Browser REPL
  • iOS REPL: Replete
  • Android REPL: Replicator
  • Desktop REPL: Planck
  • QuilFiddle
  • SessionRepl
  • Threejs playground
  • Library for bootstrapped REPLs: Replumb
  • A clojurescript web repl: KLIPSE
  • Desktop REPL: Lumo
  • Embeddable clojurescript repl: KLIPSE plugin
  • Musical live coding environment: Klangmeister

The following enumerates the remaining tasks:

• Ensure perf is good.
• Ensure defects are addressed. Many have bootstrap label: JIRA Query
• Determine if shared bootstrap REPL code will be included and implement.

* you can use the CLJS API reference to help identify imported macros and related Clojure types

cljs-in-cljs from 2012

As a point of reference, https://github.com/kanaka/clojurescript is a previous project to bootstrap the ClojureScript compiler. It is fairly dated since it was forked from the main tree on Nov 16th, 2012, however, it was self-hosting and allowed for a fully browser-based REPL (original version of http://clojurescript.net/). A presentation of the project from Clojure West 2013 is here: http://www.infoq.com/presentations/cljs-in-cljs