About Symp

1. About Symp

A symbolic processing framework

💡 motivation

Symp began as an exploration of what programming might look like if compilers were transparent conversations instead of black boxes.

🧩 What Is Symp?

Symp is a minimalist symbolic computation backend. It unifies parsing, transformation, and execution into one explicit pipeline:


input → syntax → semantics → output

Instead of hiding these layers inside a compiler, Symp makes each stage programmable. Symp lets you experiment with how programming languages themselves think — right from the grammar to execution. You don’t define functions. You define frames — each with its own syntax (form) and semantics (meaning).

🧠 Core Components

Symbolmatch: PEG-like grammar engine — built-in syntax validation
Symbolverse: term rewriting and transformation engine — built-in semantic processing
Symbolprose: graph-based execution of symbolic programs — built-in semantic processing

These three systems for syntax analysis and semantic synthesis are connected through the Symp glue language, where you can write:

(APPLY
  (FRAME
    (SYNTAX (APPLY symbolmatch (SEXPR (RULES ...))))
    (SEMANTICS (APPLY symbolverse (SEXPR (REWRITE ...)))))
  (SEXPR myProgram))

🔮 Why It’s Different

Explicit meaning – You can see how syntax maps to semantics.
Composable – Each frame can use others as sub-frames.
Reflective – Frames can define new frames (meta-programming built in).
Minimal – Entire core fits in a few hundred lines.
Beautifully weird – A computing system from an alternate reality where theory outran graphics.

🧬 Design Philosophy

Every computation in Symp passes through form and meaning.

Syntax validates structure.
Semantics transforms intent.
Output becomes new input.

It’s not a conventional programming language — it’s a framework for building languages of meaning. Use it to prototype symbolic languages, theorem provers, or DSLs.

🚀 Getting Started (coming soon)

Install the runtime.
Run the Symp web REPL or CLI.
Try examples in /examples/.

📚 Learn More

🖤 Inspiration

Symp is inspired by Lisp, PEGs, term rewriting systems, and finite state machines.