Introduction

The purpose of the Loki Project, which this blog documents, is to provide a compiler and support classes for translating Beta into the Java language.  Although Beta and Java are very different languages in syntax as well as semantics, Java is flexible enough that compiling Beta into it does not seem an utterly impossible proposition.

The Loki Papers, when complete, will serve as a specification of such a compiler.  Obviously, there's more than one way to do it:  these papers reflect only my personal views.  When I say "Loki does this" or "Loki will have that", that is only for conciseness.

I do not have the resources to actually write and deliver Loki to the astonished world.  I wish I did.  However, I am hoping that someone with the necessary time will be able to make a stab at a real implementation.  Such an effort should be open source, available under either the GNU Public License or one of the other standard licenses.  Obviously, a closed-source implementation is also possible, and I cannot prevent it.

I will assume a fair knowledge of Java.