The Crayon programming language

by SenHeng • 8 years ago

96 27 8 years ago

No Linux support?

blakeohare4• 8 years ago

Alas, it's true. While the platforms Crayon programs can export to can run on Linux, the compiler itself was originally written in C# back when it was just a tinker-hobby project and does too many Windows-y things. The OSX support is based on Mono but is somewhat flakey in certain environments. Eventually I have plans to migrate the compiler to another language (possibly Crayon itself).

randomerr• 8 years ago

It looks like you're using Visual Studio 2015. Could you rewrite it into .NET Core so that it can run on Linux?

I like your idea.

danschumann• 8 years ago

I'm kind of upset the squid game doesn't have an on screen counter. I played for about 15 minutes... pretty sure I got 30+

blakeohare4• 8 years ago

I will get right on that!

barskern3• 8 years ago

I'm not really sure I understand what Crayon fixes for Javascript. Based on my understanding from the intermediate tutorial it seems to be mostly identical to Javascript, with a game library built in. Can somebody help me understand what makes this language stand out?

blakeohare4• 8 years ago

Hello, I'm actually the creator of Crayon and was surprised to find this showed up here.

Yes, the syntax very closely resembles JavaScript but there's more traits from static languages such as Java and less malleability than JS. For example libraries and dependencies are resolved at compile time and you can make it print out a tree of dependencies at compile time for use in environments that need to be properly sandboxed. Also, fields must be explicitly declared. This allows a lot more things like simple typos to be caught at compile time. The other thing is that it's export-ready for the platforms it supports. For example, when exporting to iOS, it generates a full XCode project. While this is similar to frameworks or languages like Cordova or Haxe, the thing that is unique to Crayon is the localizability of the language and libraries into non-English languages. This is still in the prototype phase, but currently works for Japanese and Spanish: https://crayonlang.org/gengo

mintplant• 8 years ago

And it looks like Crayon has full-fledged classes instead of mutable prototypes on objects, awesome. JS engines jump through some really tricky hoops to make things performant in the face of that architectural mistake.

Any plans for something like coroutines/generators?

barskern3• 8 years ago

Thank you for the explanatory answer.

Localization seems like a two-edged sword. Wouldn't it cause a spilt in the community when it comes to tutorials and documentation? Especially if the community is small.

In Excel I repeatedly faced the problem that the formula "programming" language was my own language and not English, which meant that all English Excel formulas I found had to be translated. In my opinion the benefit of writing my native language does not outweigh the problems of constantly translating formulas.

What are your thoughts on this problem? Have you thought of any ways to prevent such problems?

SenHeng• 8 years ago

Hey, I saw you present this on Saturday and really loved the idea of 'I write programs in Crayon'. I couldn't find anything related posted on HN so I decided to make a submission. Hope it didn't cause too much troubles.

MR4D• 8 years ago

I just did a quick read through your site. I only have two comments:

1 - great work! 2 - connect it to LLVM on the back end. That will cause your user base to absolutely explode.

makach• 8 years ago

This is amazing! I like the syntax and the projects vision. Really appreciate this effort!

d--b2• 8 years ago

It is most succinctly described as a "Loosely typed Java or C#", "Curly brace version of Python", or "JavaScript that's been fixed"

Umph, these are not good selling points.

- Strong typing is one of the top features of C# and Java.

- Python is all about math-friendly syntax (ie no curly braces and semi colons).

- And claiming to fix javascript is presumptuous.

At best, this makes it sound like a toy version of kotlin.

loup-vaillant• 8 years ago

claiming to fix javascript is presumptuous.

How so? Lua did it, why not someone else?

gsaga• 8 years ago

Lua didn't fix javascript, javascript screwed lua up

Waterluvian• 8 years ago

JavaScript is fine. It has quite the trail behind it and there's some things I hope arrive sooner than later, but I get a lot done these days without any pain. Its fixed/fixing itself.

clintonc• 8 years ago

Man, you sound pretty grumpy about it. I'm pretty sure that the author does not mean "just like Java but with no types". Python is all about the syntax (and it's certainly not all about "math-friendly" syntax), though the syntax was an interesting choice. "Fixing JavaScript" means different things to different people, but I take it to mean that crayon differs in some aspects that annoyed the author about JavaScript.

Notice that the author was rather effective at getting us to think about the features of these languages and how crayon fits in.

d--b2• 8 years ago

Sorry, I didn't mean to sound grumpy. I just wanted to say that as a C#, Python and Javascript developer, I am put off by the arguments put forward in the landing page.

Saying that is as forgiving as Javascript, as productive as Python and as robust as C# is a better way to sell the language than saying it is C# minus typing, Python minus easy syntax and Javascript minus problems...

hellofunk• 8 years ago

I very highly recommend Crayons. I have been using them since I was maybe 4 or 5 years old, and still find it useful to this day. It is a simple joy.

ArekDymalski• 8 years ago

Interesting project. I'll test it on my 9yo son. Maybe the Squid will convince him to stop moving commands in Scratch and start typing them instead :)

hitekker• 8 years ago

What a fun name for a programming language.

camgunz• 8 years ago

I love basically everything about this project. Nice work, bookmarking :)

lichenwarp• 8 years ago

I don't care about the rest of your website if my blood pressure is 5000, thanks flappy bird clone.

Simulacra• 8 years ago

I was excited but no Linux support.. rats.

The Crayon programming language

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