Designed by Muthiah Annamalai First appeared 2007 | Developer Independent/Freelance Typing discipline strong, dynamic | |
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Stable release version 0.1 / 13 June 2013; 3 years ago (2013-06-13) | ||
Ezhil, in Tamil language script (எழில்), is a compact, open source, interpreted, programming language, originally designed to enable native-Tamil speaking students, K-12 age-group to learn computer programming, and enable learning numeracy and computing, outside of linguistic expertise in predominately English language-based computer systems.
Contents
- Description
- Goals
- Features
- Keywords
- Type system
- Language control structures function declarations and operators grammar
- Operators
- Comments
- Variable scoping and visibility
- Implementations
- Hello world
- Guessing game
- Turtle graphics
- Logo Ezhil
- References
In the Ezhil programming language, Tamil keywords and language-grammar are chosen to easily enable the native Tamil speaker write programs in the Ezhil system. Ezhil allows easy representation of computer program closer to the Tamil language logical constructs equivalent to the conditional, branch and loop statements in modern English based programming languages. Ezhil is the first freely available programming language in the Tamil language and one of many known non-English-based programming languages. The language was officially announced in July 2009, while it has been developed since late 2007.
Description
The syntax of Ezhil is broadly similar to that of BASIC: blocks of code are run in sequential order, or via functions definitions, in a common control flow structures include while, and if. The termination of function block and statement blocks should have the termination keyword, similar to END in BASIC. Declarations are not necessary as Ezhil is a dynamic typed language, though type conversions must be made explicitly. Ezhil has built-in types for Numbers, Strings, Logicals and Lists.
Goals
Features
Keywords
Ezhil (எழில்) keywords and statements are chosen to closely represent in the computer programs, the same chain of reasoning and logic followed (SVOA - Subject-Verb-Object order) in Tamil language. The resulting syntax is noticeable feature in that the predicate followed by the expression like in LISP [4], which is a natural way of reasoning by the Tamil language grammar. Conditional Statements are modeled after the IF-ELSEIF-ELSE statement . Loop control statements deriving from the WHILE statements are chosen. The function declaration syntax is kept simple. Details include the print statement, and the flow control statements below.
Type system
Ezhil has four basic types, for Numbers, Strings, Logicals and Lists. It does not allow creation of new types, being a procedural language without structures or objects.
Language - control structures, function declarations and operators grammar
Standard language grammar for control structures for Ezhil language is given below,
Operators
Standard logical operators, equality "==", inequality "!=", arithmetic comparison ">=", "<=",">","<" are supported. Arithmetic operators like "+","-","*","/" indicate standard plus, minus, product, division. Modulo is denoted by "%", and exponent by "^" characters.
Comments
'#' character denotes a single-line comment from the point to end-of-line. Multi-line comments are not defined.
Variable scoping, and visibility
Ezhil supports only call-by-value, and copies all data structures on function invocations. Globals are not supported. Recursion is supported and functions invocation copies variables.
Implementations
Current Ezhil implementatioon is tightly integrated with the Python runtime. Ezhil interpreter is based on a readline-like CLI, while it can also be run in a batch mode. The interactive mode consumes programs as UTF-8 encoded text and builds a tree, using a compiler front-end, to build an AST, and executes it using the Python objects build from this AST.
Hello world
The following is a Hello world program in Ezhil:
Guessing game
The following is a guessing game with 10-chances to guess a number between [1-100].
Turtle graphics
The following is a Turtle graphics based example to draw the Yin-Yang symbols.