Axel

Official implementation of the Axel programming language. Written in JavaScript. Designed to be simple, flexible, and elegant, while being as fast as JavaScript.

Index

1. Index
2. Introduction
3. Installing
4. Comments
5. Data Types
6. Functions and Object Oriented Axel
7. Grammar
8. Support

Introduction

Why?

I was bored. Also I wanted a language containing Ruby's syntax, Python's flexibility and JavaScript's speed.

Let's get to the installation and the syntax.

Installing

1. install Node.js (>= v16) if you haven't already
2. clone the repo
3. make a file named main.js and put this inside:

new require("./axel/axel.js").compile(`

your Axel code

`)

Comments

Comments are made using --. Multiline comments are made using -( comment )-

Data Types

So, data types.

Variables

There are two kinds of variables in Axel: mutable and immutable. Mutable variables are those that can be changed once declared, immutable are those which cannot.

All variables made with the first letter capital are automatically declared as immutable, while those that have a lowercase first letter are considered mutable. Trying to change an immutable variable will result in an error. Example:

foo = "bar"
>>> "bar"
foo = "baz"
>>> "baz"

Baz = "foo"
>>> "foo"
Baz = "bar"
>>> DeclarationError: At line 5:
>>> Cannot change an immutable variable

Lists and hashes

Lists are a collection of items. You can define them using [] syntax.

fruits = ["peach", "orange"]

Hashes, the equivalent of dictionaries in Python, can be made using curly braces ({}).

headers = {"Authentication" => "Bearer"}

Functions and Object Oriented Axel

Functions

You can define a function in Axel using the fn keyword.

fn greet ()
  print "hello world"
end

Classes

Note: classes aren't implemented yet, but this is how the syntax would look like, roughly. Classes are made using the class keyword.

class Person
  initialize (name)
    @name = name
  end

  say (sentence) 
    print "#{@name} says '#{sentence}'"
  end
end

We can insert an expression into a string using #{expression}, as shown above.

The class can then be instantiated using the new static method, in this case:

arnold = Person.new("Arnold")
arnold.say("Hello, I'm Arnold!")
>>> Arnold says 'Hello, I'm Arnold!'

Grammar

Detailed information about keywords and syntax (the language's EBNF) is available in the grammar.md file, located inside the src/data/ folder.

Support

Have a question? Ask our community!

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