I'm really interested in writing my own general-purpose high-level programming language, but I'm somewhat confused.
I know that Python and Ruby were written in C, which makes me wonder that if I want to write my 'own Python', is it preferable to use a source-to-source compiler in order to translate all the source code of my language to C, or should I target assembly language?
The point is, I know that I need to dig in Compiler Design and understand Lexical Analysis, and the whole process of parsing the code and generating tokens and an intermediate language and checking for syntax and semantic errors and then generating output code.
However, since I'm not an expert in low level / assembly programming, should I use a source-to-source compiler? What challenges might I face if I attempt to compile my language to assembly? What drawbacks might there be in using a source-to-source compiler? What domain specific facets of my situation should I consider when making this decision?
Best Answer
I am going to focus on your core question, since other stuff has been answered elsewhere.
Getting software done is hard. While making a new language can be pretty easy, you need to stick to simple stuff and avoid the stuff that is a pain to implement. Making your first language has the problem that you don't know what the "pain to implement" stuff is. And let's face it, you're not aiming making a new language that can only implement console based calculators - the interesting stuff is going to be non-trivial to implement.
So do yourself a favor and target a language that you already know. Making a new language and a functional compiler is hard enough without adding "learn assembly" to the list of tasks. By setting yourself up for success, you're more likely to have fun and learn from the endeavor.