internals/plugin-guide: first draft

3 files changed, 131 insertions, 1 deletions

diff --git a/Makefile b/Makefile
index a3f736c..eac8666 100644
--- a/Makefile
+++ b/Makefile
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 MODULES=$(wildcard lib/*.moon) lib/midi/launchctl.moon
 MODREFS=$(MODULES:lib/%.moon=docs/reference/%.html)
-CORE=$(wildcard core/*.moon core/**/*.moon)
+CORE=$(wildcard core/*.moon core/**/*.moon) $(wildcard core/*.md)
 DEPS=core/version.moon extra/docs.moon extra/layout.moon extra/dom.moon
 
 .PHONY: docs reference internals release clean
diff --git a/core/config.ld b/core/config.ld
index 176db90..e010c5b 100644
--- a/core/config.ld
+++ b/core/config.ld
@@ -12,4 +12,5 @@ If you are looking for the language reference for users, head over to the
 format = 'discount'
 style = 'docs'
 template = 'docs'
+topics={'core/plugin-guide.md'}
 dir = 'docs/internals'
diff --git a/core/plugin-guide.md b/core/plugin-guide.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..f5e3c50
--- /dev/null
+++ b/core/plugin-guide.md
@@ -0,0 +1,129 @@
+# writing `alive` plugins
+
+Plugins for `alive` are implemented in [Lua][lua] or [MoonScript][moonscript]
+(which runs as Lua). When an `alive` module is [require][]d, alive looks for a
+Lua module `lib.[module]`. You can simply add a new file with extension `.lua`
+or `.moon` in the `lib` directory of your alive installation or somewhere else
+in your `LUA_PATH`.
+
+To write plugins, a number of classes and utilities are required. All of these
+are exported in the `base` module.
+
+## documentation metadata
+The lua module should return a `Scope` or a table that will be converted using
+`Scope.from_table`. All exports should be documented using `Value.meta`, which
+attaches a `meta` table to the value that is used for error messages,
+documentation generation and [`(doc)`][builtins-doc].
+
+    import Value from require 'core.base'
+    
+    two = Value.meta
+      meta:
+        name: 'two'
+        summary: "the number two"
+      value: 2
+    
+    {
+      :two
+    }
+
+In the `meta` table `summary` is the only required key, but all of the
+information that applies should be provided.
+
+- `name`: the name of this export (for error reporting).
+- `summary`: a one-line plain-text description of this entry. Should be
+  capitalized and end with a period.
+- `examples`: a table of strings, each of which is a short one-line code
+  example illustrating the argument names for an Op.
+- `description`: a longer markdown-formatted description of the functionality
+  of this entry.
+
+## defining `Op`s
+Most plugins will want to define a number of *Op*s to be used by the user. They
+are implemented by deriving from the `Op` class and implementing at least the
+`Op:setup` and `Op:tick` methods.
+
+    import Value, Op, Input, match from require 'core.base'
+
+    my_add = Value.meta
+      meta:
+        name: 'my-add'
+        summary: "Add two numbers."
+        examples: { '(my-add a b)' }
+        description: "Add two numbers, plugin-style."
+
+      value: class extends Op
+        new: => super 'num'
+        
+        setup: (inputs, scope) =>
+          { a, b } = match 'num num', inputs
+          
+          super
+            a: Inputs.value a
+            b: Inputs.value b
+        
+        tick: =>
+          @out\set @inputs.a! + @inputs.b!
+
+    {
+      'my-add': my_add
+    }
+
+### Op:setup
+`Op:setup` is called once every *eval cycle* to parse the Op's arguments, check
+their types, choose the updating behaviour and define the output type.
+
+The arguments to `:setup` are a list of inputs (each is a `Result` instance),
+and the `Scope` the evaluation happened in. Ops generally shouldn't use the
+scope, but might look up 'magic' dynamic symbols like `\*clock\*`.
+
+#### argument parsing
+Arguments should be parsed using `match`. It takes a string that describes the
+argument types and matches them against the provided arguments:
+    
+    import match from require 'core.base'
+
+    { str, numbers, optional } = match 'str *num any?', inputs
+
+`match` matches arguments greedily from left to right. Each part of the string
+is the type-name of a Value. Parts can be optional (`num?`), multiple (`*num` -
+one or more numbers) or both (`*num?` - zero or more numbers). If there is an
+equals sign in front of a part, the corresponding `Result` has to be
+*evaltime constant*. The special typename `any` can be used for generic Ops.
+
+If there are more complex dependencies between arguments, it is recommended to
+do as much of the parsing as possible using `match`, and then continue
+manually. For invalid or missing arguments, `Error` instances should be thrown
+using `error` or `assert`.
+
+#### input setup
+
+(section wip since changes are anticipated)
+
+#### output setup
+
+When `Op:setup` finishes, `@out` has to be set to a `Value` instance. The
+instance can be created in `Op:setup`, or by overriding the constructor and
+delegating to the original one using `super`. In general this way of creating
+the output value is preferred, and it is only moved to `Op:setup` if the output
+type depends on the arguments received.
+
+### Op:tick
+`Op:tick` is called whenever any of the inputs are *dirty*. This is where the
+Op's main logic will go. Generally here it should be checked which input(s)
+changed, and then internal state and the output value may be updated.
+
+## defining `Action`s
+`Action`s are more powerful than `Op`s, because they control whether, which and
+how their arguments are evaluated. They roughly correspond to *macros* in Lisps.
+Since it is rarely necessary to implement `Action`s, there is currently no
+documentation on implementing them, but the `Action` class documentation and the
+examples in `core/builtin.moon` should be enough to get started.
+
+## `IO`s
+
+(wip)
+
+[lua]:          https://www.lua.org/
+[moonscript]:   http://moonscript.org/
+[builtins-doc]: ../../reference/index.html#doc