🚀 CineBrew — Custom Programming Language & Virtual Machine ☕

(Built From Scratch)

CineBrew is an educational systems-level project that implements a complete programming language toolchain — from source code to execution — entirely from scratch.

It includes a compiler, a stack-based virtual machine, and a minimal runtime, designed to demonstrate how programming languages actually work under the hood.

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📌 Overview

CineBrew is a small imperative programming language that compiles into a text-based bytecode format, which is then executed by a stack-based virtual machine.

The project showcases the full lifecycle of a language:

Source Code → Compilation → Bytecode → Virtual Machine → Output

The goal is not performance or feature completeness, but clarity of architecture and correctness of fundamentals — making it ideal as a learning and demonstration project.

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🧠 What Was Built From Scratch

Compiler Components

• Lexer — Tokenization with 31 token types and 11 keywords
• Parser — Recursive-descent parser producing an AST (15 node types)
• Semantic Analyzer — Symbol table, scope handling, and validation
• Code Generator — AST → text-based bytecode

Runtime & Execution

• Virtual Machine — Stack-based interpreter with function frames
• Runtime Library — 14 built-in functions (I/O, math, timing, stubs)
• Game Loop — Frame-timed update/render pattern
• CLI Interface — Single entry point for compile + execute

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🏗️ Architecture Overview

The CineBrew execution pipeline:

Source Code (.cb) ↓ Lexer (Tokenization) ↓ Parser (AST) ↓ Semantic Analysis ↓ Code Generation (Bytecode) ↓ Stack-Based Virtual Machine ↓ Output (stdout)

Each stage is explicitly implemented to keep the system inspectable, debuggable, and educational.

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📁 Project Structure

src/

├── compiler/ # Lexer, parser, AST, semantic analyzer, code generator

├── vm/ # Stack-based virtual machine and instruction dispatch

├── runtime/ # Built-in functions (I/O, math, timing)

├── gui/ # Console-based game loop & window stub examples/ # Sample programs (hello.cb, factorial.cb, pong_game.cb) tests/ # 8 test suites covering all major subsystems docs/ # Language spec, bytecode reference, architecture notes

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🧩 Language Features

• Variables and assignments
• Functions and function calls
• Control flow (if / else, loops)
• Basic input/output
• Deterministic execution model

CineBrew keywords

TAKE,       // Variable declaration: TAKE x = 5;
    POUR,       // Print statement: POUR x;
    SCENE,      // Function definition: SCENE add(a, b) { ... }
    SHOT,       // Return statement: SHOT result;
    IF,         // Conditional: IF x > 0 { ... }
    ELSE,       // Else clause: ELSE { ... }
    LOOP,       // While loop: LOOP i < 10 { ... }
    BREAK,      // Exit loop: BREAK;
    CONTINUE,   // Skip iteration: CONTINUE;