So I’ve created a programming language which blends a fairly JavaScript-like syntax with fairly Perl-like semantics, and a few other features that I haven’t really seen in many programming languages.
This Perl:
use Path::Tiny;
my $str = uc(substr(Path::Tiny->new("myfile.txt")->slurp_utf8, 0, 80));
Becomes this in ZuzuScript:
from std/path import Path;
let str := new Path("myfile.txt")
▷ ^^.slurp_utf8
▷ ^^[0:80]
▷ uc ^^;
The ▷ operator means “evaluate the left side, then evaluate the right side with ^^ set to the result of the left side”. It’s conceptually similar to | in shells and seems to make a lot of expressions so much easier to understand.
Other features I like:
Path/query operators for XPath/JSONPath-like deep access to nested objects.
Built-in
async/await.OO including roles/traits.
Runs in the browser!
PairLists (like hashes, but with ordered keys that allow duplicate keys)
for/else
Familiar things from Perl: documentation uses pod, variables are lexical (actually almost everything is lexical), there’s a topic variable (but it’s called ^^ instead of $_), different operators for different data types (> for numbers but gt for strings), weak typing, keywords like say and warn, first class regexps, and a CPAN-like site for sharing modules.
The primary implementation is in Perl, but there are alternative implementations in Rust and JavaScript. Yes, this is coded with AI assistance.
More info: https://zuzulang.org/.
