Ran Programming Language

Introduction

Ran is a lightweight, expressive programming language designed for simplicity and elegance.

Why

There's a few reasons why I created this language interpreter

I wanted to learn Go by building a project
I was also curious about how programming languages are built
I wanted to create a simple language that I could use to learn and teach programming concepts
Telling someone I created a programming language sounds cool 😎

Features

Data Types: Supports strings, numbers, and booleans and their operations.
Variables: Use let to assign values to variables.
Control Structures: Includes if-else statements for conditional logic.
Mathematical Operations: Follows proper precedence rules for mathematical operations.
Functions: Define and invoke functions, support higher-order functions, pass functions as parameters, and closures.
Collections: Supports arrays and objects.
Macros: Create macros/pre-processors to generate code.
REPL: Interactive shell for running Ran code.
Built-in Functions: Includes some powerful built-in functions.

Getting Started

Hello World

print("Hello, World!")

Variables and Data Types

let name = "Ran"
let age = 1
let isActive = true

print(name)
print(age)
print(isActive)

Functions

let add = fn (a, b) {
    return a + b
}

print(add(2, 3))

Higher-Order Functions

let applyOperation = fn (a, b, operation) {
    return operation(a, b)
}

let multiply = fn (x, y) {
    return x * y
}

print(applyOperation(3, 4, multiply))

Control Structures

let num = 10;

if (num > 5) {
    print("Greater than 5")
} else {
    print("Less than or equal to 5")
}

Arrays and Objects

let fruits = ["Apple", "Banana", "Cherry"]
print(fruits[1])

let person = {
    "name": "Alice",
    "age": 30
}
print(person["name"])

Macros

let unless = macro(condition, consequence, alternative) {
    quote(if (!(unquote(condition))) {
        unquote(consequence);
    } else {
        unquote(alternative);
    });
};

unless(10 > 5, puts("not greater"), puts("greater"));

What's Next

Add line and block comments
Add line and column numbers to error messages
Add more built-in functions
Add more tests
A bytecode compiler and a virtual machine
- In progress, start from conditions
A Vs Code extension for syntax highlighting and running Ran code

Conclusion

I hope you find this project interesting and useful. Feel free to contribute, ask questions, or give feedback. You can also reach out to me on Twitter @notparbez. Since I'm new to Go and language design, I'm sure there are many areas where I can improve. I'm excited to learn from you and make this project better together. This isn't a serious project, so I won't implement above features anytime soon.

imranbarbhuiya/ran