Blog

• Announcing Jactl 2.0.0

  Jactl 2.0.0 is a major release that fixes a few bugs and adds some new language features. The biggest new feature is powerful pattern matching with destructuring via a new switch expression.

• Pattern Matching and Destructuring

  The forthcoming Jactl release (2.0.0) introduces switch expressions which provide the same functionality as switch statements/expressions in Java but, in addition, also provides the ability to do powerful pattern matching with destructuring that is common in many functional languages.

• Advent Of Code 2023 - Day 9

  An easy day where we had to calculate the next number for each of a given set of number series. After stumbling on a stupid mistake with an iterative approach, the recursive approach worked first time and ended up as a much nicer solution.

• Advent Of Code 2023 - Day 8

  Another fun day. As usual part 2 could not be brute forced so needed some lateral thinking.

• Advent Of Code 2023 - Day 7

  Today did not require too much cleverness but there were a couple of traps to watch out for.

• Advent Of Code 2023 - Day 6

  Once again, an even day seems to be easier than an odd day. I am sure it is just a coincidence.

• Advent Of Code 2023 - Day 5

  Part 2 of day 5 was a bit of a challenge to get right. A nice feeling to have completed it.

• Advent Of Code 2023 - Day 4

  A fairly straightforward day after giving the brain cells a workout yesterday.

• Advent Of Code 2023 - Day 3

  After an easyish day 2, the difficulty level bumped up a bit again for day 3.

• Advent Of Code 2023 - Day 2

  Day 2 - Easier than day 1. Mostly a parsing exercise.

• Advent Of Code 2023 - Day 1

  Another year has come around quickly and so another chance to have some fun solving the Advent Of Code puzzles for 2023. Once again, I will be attempting to solve these puzzles using Jactl. The version I am using is the latest version (1.3.1 as of time of writing).

• Announcing Jactl 1.3.0

  Jactl 1.3.0 fixes a few minor bugs and adds some language features. The main new feature is to support the ability to checkpoint script instance execution state and have it restored and resumed on another instance after a failure.

• Proof of Concept: 20,000 Payments per Second with Checkpoint Replication

  Jactl 1.3.0 introduces the ability to checkpoint the current execution state of a script and have it restored and resumed elsewhere after a failure. In order to test this new feature, I implemented a proof-of-concept project that simulates a payment processing system that accepts payment requests, performs some operations by interacting with multiple external systems and then returns a response. The payment processing system checkpoints its state when required and if a failure occurs, payments in flight will have their state restored and resumed to make sure that no payment is lost.

• Advent Of Code 2022 - Day 25

  Day 25: Full of Hot Air

• Advent Of Code 2022 - Day 24

  Day 24: Blizzard Basin

• Advent Of Code 2022 - Day 23

  Day 23: Unstable Diffusion

• Advent Of Code 2022 - Day 22

  Day 22: Monkey Map

• Advent Of Code 2022 - Day 21

  Day 21: Monkey Math

• Advent Of Code 2022 - Day 20

  Day 20: Grove Positioning System

• Advent Of Code 2022 - Day 19

  Day 19: Not Enough Minerals

• Joey: Jactl Orchestration Engine

  I am often asked what the point is in having yet another language for the JVM. Apart from the fun of writing a compiler and being able to run actual programs using my own language, I wanted a language where the execution state could be captured and persisted such that if the server where the application is running fails, the execution state can be restored and resumed on another machine.

• Advent Of Code 2022 - Day 18

  Day 18: Boiling Boulders

• Advent Of Code 2022 - Day 17

  Day 17: Pyroclastic Flow

• Advent Of Code 2022 - Day 16

  Day 16: Proboscidea Volcanium

• Advent Of Code 2022 - Day 15

  Day 15: Beacon Exclusion Zone

• Advent Of Code 2022 - Day 14

  Day 14 - Regolith Reservoir

• Advent Of Code 2022 - Day 13

  Day 13 - Distress Signal

• Advent Of Code 2022 - Day 12

  Day 12 - Hill Climbing Algorithm

• Advent Of Code 2022 - Day 11

  Day 11 - Monkey in the Middle

• Advent Of Code 2022 - Day 10

  Day 10 - Cathode-Ray Tube

• Advent Of Code 2022 - Day 9

  Day 9 - Rope Bridge

• Advent Of Code 2022 - Day 8

  Day 8 - Treetop Tree House

• Advent Of Code 2022 - Day 7

  Day 7 - No Space Left On Device

• Advent Of Code 2022 - Day 6

  Day 6 - Tuning Trouble

• Advent Of Code 2022 - Day 5

  Day 5 - Supply Stacks

• Advent Of Code 2022 - Day 4

  Day 4 - Camp Cleanup

• Advent Of Code 2022 - Day 3

  Day 3 - Rucksack Reorganisation

• Advent Of Code 2022 - Day 2

  Day 2 - Rock Paper Scissors

• Advent Of Code 2022 - Day 1

  In order to have some fun and exercise Jactl on some coding problems I have decided to solve the programming challenges from last year’s Advent of Code - 2022. Every year the Advent of Code publishes a challenge for each day of the Advent calendar.

• Welcome to Jactl

  Jactl is a new programming language for JVM based applications. It provides a secure way for application developers to provide customisation and extension capabilities to their users but can also be used for commandline scripts. An interactive REPL is provided for testing out code snippets.