nerdlang

Why Nerd Lang ?

Nerd Lang is an(other) attempt to have an efficient and yet simple language, where everything is a variable. Nerd has no superlative: it's not the fastest, it's not the best, it's not the easiest... It's Nerd.

One of our main objective is to have a versatile tool that we can interpret, compile, or transpile. Nerd tries to have one way to do something, we will see after how to do OOP, FP or other stuffs.

Getting started

As this is a really alpha stage release, you need NodeJS to use NerdLang. Download and install NodeJS, and then install NerdLang with:

npm i -g nerdlang

You also need GCC or Clang, with support of c++17. Once done, you can start to compile Nerd files. For Arduino, you need avr-gcc in order to compile the firmware, you can get it here for Windows: https://blog.zakkemble.net/avr-gcc-builds/ To target Wasm, you need Emscripten: https://emscripten.org/

Then, you can compile your first file:

nerd myfile.ng --run

You can generate some examples in your working directory with:

nerd --examples

To compile and run a program, use --run

nerd hello.ng --run

Roadmap

• Write the whole Nerd softwares in Nerd
• Support Arduino, ESP32, STM32, Android, iOS, and more
• Add all the needed standards modules
• Add a module manager
• Add an interpreter
• Add runtimes in different languages
• Language
  • support multi variable assignment
  • switch statement
  • AST optimization with native type when possible

The Grammar / Syntax

Nerd is close to C/C++ and JS syntax: brackets, comma, and classical expressions.

Declare a variable

var a = "ok";

Assign a variable

a = 3;

Declare a constant

A constant is a variable whose name starts with _:

var _myConst = "Hello";

Declare a function

A function is also a variable, so you declare a function as a variable:

var myFunction = function(_arg1, _arg2)
{
  // function's body 
};

There is no function hoisting in Nerd, so you need to declare a function before you can use it.

for loop

for(var i = 0; i < 10; i++)
{
  // for body
}

while / do while loop

while(1)
{
  // while body
};

do
{

} while(1);

if / else if / else

if(1)
{

}
else if(2)
{

}
else
{

}

Array

var anArray = [];

Object

var anObject = {};
var _aConstObject =
{
  property: "Hello",
  _constProperty: "World",
}

Include a module

var console = require("console");

Concepts

OOP

You can emulate classes and OOP by creating a function returning an object containing a list of function modifying an internal value:

var _aHuman = function(_name, _age)
{
	var thisScope = 
	{
		name: _name,
		age: _age,
		_pi: 3.14116, // constant property
	};

	var _addYear = function()
	{
		thisScope.age++;
	}

	var _changeName = function(_name)
	{
		thisScope.name = _name;
	}
  
	var toReturn =
	{
		addYear: _addYear,
		changeName: _changeName,
	};
	return toReturn;
}

var _me = _aHuman("John Doe", 40);
_me.addYear();

FP

var _chainedFunction = function()
{
   var this = {};
   var then = function()
   {
      return this;
   }
   
   var end = function()
   {
      // the end
   }
   
   this.then = then;
   this.end = end;
   return this;
}

_chainedFunction().then().then().end();