Punctaffy🔗ℹ

Punctaffy is an experimental library for working with a higher-dimensional notion of lexical syntactic structure. We call these generalized lexical regions hypersnippets, we delimit them using hyperbrackets, and we call our generalized s-expressions hyperbracketed code.

For a gradual introduction to 2-dimensional hypersnippets, see Introduction to Punctaffy. Basically, Punctaffy embraces the analogy sometimes drawn between parentheses ( ) and the notation of quasiquotation `( ,( ) ) and generalizes these as the 1-dimensional and 2-dimensional instances of a concept that can be instantiated at any dimension and used for various purposes aside from quotation.

While not quite the same thing, the geometric shapes of hypersnippets appear to be closely related to the opetopes of opetopic higher category theory. (See Potential Application: Opetopes and Higher Categories.)

For practical use, Punctaffy’s main drawback is the amount of time it takes to compile hyperbracketed programs—even the simplest ones. This is something that can be improved over time. For now, Punctaffy serves mainly as a proof of concept.