V: Implement Language Server Protocol for editor integrations

[itsbalamurali]

The idea is to implement Language Server Protocol A.K.A LSP.

Why LSP?

LSP creates the opportunity to reduce the m-times-n complexity problem of providing a high level of support for V language in any editor, IDE, or client endpoint to a simpler m-plus-n problem.

For example, instead of the traditional practice of building a V plugin for VSCode, a V plugin for Sublime Text, a V plugin for Vim, a V plugin for Sourcegraph, and so on, for every language, LSP allows language communities to concentrate their efforts on a single, high performing language server that can provide code completion, hover tooltips, jump-to-definition, find-references, and more, while editor and client communities can concentrate on building a single, high performing, intuitive and idiomatic extension that can communicate with any language server to instantly provide deep language support.

More about LSP

[nedpals]

We've talked about this in our Discord server and I really want to build one. But in order to build an LSP server is to have a JSON-RPC server (which I'm currently working on), a parser (which is already available through the compiler module), and lots of time to read the LSP specification.

[itsbalamurali]

@nedpals we could use the reference implementation of golang version called gopls.

[nedpals]

@itsbalamurali Let's continue the discussion here. #465

[LennyPenny]

Would love for there to be a tracking issue for LSP support, #465 seems to only be focused on syntax.

[mindplay-dk]

@nedpals #465 discusses a tool for AST classification and syntax highlighting - this is more or less unrelated to this issue, which is about semantic analysis, online analysis and IDE support, etc. - please reopen this issue. (type inference, for one, can't be done with simple AST analysis.)

[nedpals]

After I read the discussion on that issue, I think the LSP discussion might have on its own. Apologies! Reopening it now.

[medvednikov]

https://github.com/vlang/vls

[mindplay-dk]

Nice to see this work has started! 👍

Good IDE support is after all half the fun in a language with good type safety 😁

[medvednikov]

Yes it will be awesome. It's almost done, and it's using the new AST parser.