Feature request: Input cells that translate a surface language such as SageMath to Python

[mkoeppe]

Description

From a question asked by someone in the Marimo community call today regarding support for "other kernels, like SageMath" @akshayka:

To support the SageMath surface language in marimo instead of Python, it would suffice to be able to hook in a function that transforms the surface language to Python. Users would select the language of the cell (options: Markdown, Python, SageMath)

Suggested solution

Example:

>>> from passagemath_repl import preparse
>>> preparse('x = 3/5')
'x = Integer(3)/Integer(5)'

Are you willing to submit a PR? (You must receive approval from the team before submitting a PR.)

• Yes

Alternatives

No response

Additional context

No response

[akshayka]

Ah! thanks for the clarification. In this case the anywidget direction @koaning suggested may have been the right one. Vincent, can you link to the neo4j example?

[koaning]

You can see the widget live on molab here. The code for the widget can be found on the wigglystuff repository.

The main trick here is to create a UI element where the user can write whatever language they like with a custom method for syntax highlighting/autocomplete that all takes place in the frontend. Then, when it's actually time to run something, that's when requests are made, processes could be run, and interaction with Python can happen. That's the pattern I used.

[akshayka]

@mkoeppe, we have a hard stance of not adding new cell types to marimo, because a lot of marimo's value comes from being a pure Python program with reproducible semantics. We do support SQL but we extend the dataflow graph across it (which was a lot of work and is a lot of work to maintain). But hopefully you can get what you need by the widget Vincent linked to.