The blop language

Blop is a language for the Web that can natively generates Virtual DOM trees using a familiar HTML like syntax. The Blop language compiles to ES6 compliant JavaScript. The language is mostly self contained and has very few dependencies.

Unlike JSX Blop is not limited to expressions and you can use the full power of the language to generate Virtual DOM trees. You can mix any statement, expressions, and HTML like syntax within the same function. Blop is using snabbdom library to generate the Virtual DOM trees. The language is written using the Meta Parser Generator.

The blop runtime also comes with a Component and lifecycle system.

Example project from this repository

State management and routing can be up to you, but 2 small libraries provide the basics to get started

• A state management system based on Proxies
• A routing system

How to get get started

• Documentation
• Install the example application
• Blop language syntax reference
• How do Blop Components work?

Language features

• Virtual DOM generation is natively supported by the language.
• Fast compilation (+30'000 lines by second).
• A linter is integrated into the language: no linter debate.
• Good integration with Visual Studio Code: linter and syntactic coloration.
• Source maps.
• Server Side Rendering in the example.
• Hot module reloading in the example (HMR)
• Type annotation with very basic type inference warnings.
• Similar syntax and features than ES6.
• 100% Webpack and Jest compatible
• Very small payload size for Snabbdom and Blop runtime: Parsed size: ~20KB, Gzipped: ~7KB

Language features missing

• The language is still in beta

Installation

npm install blop-language

Or if you want to use the development version with examples

git clone this repo
npm install
npm start
open http://localhost:3000

Command line usage

To convert a single file

blop -i input.blop -o output.js

Configure Webpack loader for blop

Add this rule into your webpack.config.js

module.exports = {
  module: {
    rules: [
      {
        test: /\.blop$/,
        use: [
          {
            loader: 'blop-language/src/loader',
            options: {debug: false}
          }
        ]
      }
    ]
  }
};

Configure Jest for blop

// jest.config.js
module.exports = {
  moduleFileExtensions: [
    'blop',
    'js',
  ],
  testMatch: ['**/*.test.blop'],
  transform: {
    '^.+\\.blop$': 'blop-language/src/jest',
  },
};

Install Visual Studio Code extensions

Install them though visualstudio marketplace.

vscode will prompt you to install the extension when you open a .blop file

Here is a link to the extensions on the visualstudio marketplace

Install the extensions https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/search?term=blop&target=VSCode&category=All%20categories&sortBy=Relevance

Install them through github

If you cloned the repository, it is has simple has creating a symbolic link to your ~/.vscode/extensions directory. This function will do it for you:

cd blop-language/
npm run link-extensions

Relaunch vscode and open a .blop file to see if the linter and coloration work