AL
Section
This livebook attempts to document and teach AL's unique features. Skip to any section you need.
Getting Livebook itself
If you don't already have Livebook installed:
mix escript.install hex livebook
then
livebook server
(if you use asdf, run asdf reshim elixir right after installing, so the livebook command lands on your $PATH.) That opens the Livebook UI in your browser. From there, open any notebook in livebooks/ directly, no other setup needed.
Connecting
Every notebook in this list installs AL itself on its first cell, via Mix.install. Just open one and run its Setup cells top to bottom. The first run compiles AL from scratch, which takes a minute or two; reopening it later is fast.
AL.Branch.head()If that returns a branch instead of erroring, you're set up correctly.
If you'd rather work against a real, persistent, shared store instead (useful for actual AL development, since a Mix.install notebook's state disappears when the session ends), run bin/livebook in this checkout instead of a standalone livebook server. That boots the project's own mix environment with a Livebook server embedded in it. Then, in a notebook, replace its Setup cells with attaching to that node directly: Runtime in the left bar → Configure → Attached node → enter al@127.0.0.1 and whatever cat ~/.erlang.cookie prints → Connect.
Notebooks
- Syntax basics — goals, unification, arithmetic,
findall. - Working with objects — classes, inheritance, slots,
examine. - Logic and constraints —
dif,=,all_dif, backward execution, open-receiver queries. - The command log — durability, branching, forking, multiple sessions.
- Debugging and tracing — live tracing, reading failures, derivation trees.
- Packages — configuration, the package object model, authoring, extensions, import/export, dependencies, and branch-local activation.
- Effects and future transactions — first-class effect objects, edge providers, resource events,
spawn, and effect-scopedawait.
