CargoCult, part one

This is a post about my dream language, which I've named CargoCult.  It's a mashup of Perl, Objective-C, JavaScript, Shell, and other things.

It does NOT eschew the use of shifted characters -- it just requires that they be important, with a value greater than the extra effort of typing shift + something.

Object Notation

CargoCult is a dynamic object language.  This means you have type-able structures, potentially dynamic, which have attributes and methods.

Core language features -- arrays, hashes, variables -- are objects.  For example, the implicit array type is an object, so you can do things like this:

    return [d1, d2, d3].sort.reverse.pop; 

Hashes and arrays use the grouping notation of braces. An array is a comma-separated list of scalars.  A hash is a comma-separated list of assignments.

     my array = 1, 2, 3, 'four';  # also [ 1, 2, 3, 'four' ]

     my hash  = [year = 2012, month = two, day = 23];

Hash and array accesses are object calls.

    my value = hash.year;
    my other_value = array.0;

Method Calling with Parameters

When we write methods in any language, we typically name formal parameters.  For example:

string myFunction( foo, bar )

{

   foo + ': ' + bar;

}

foo and bar are formal parameters, i.e. the names used in the method.

When calling a method, parameters are passed in by name.  In other words, the parameters are more or less a hash.

my str = myObj myFunction .foo 'hello' .bar 'world';

When you have to nest the call, use the backslash to indicate a method call (rather than a new array), and then braces for grouping.

           my str = myObj myFunction .foo \[myObj myFunction .foo 'hello' .bar 'world'] .bar '!';