Language Documentation — API Documentation
Versatile Scripting Language
VSL is a modern, powerful, fast, and easy to write programming language designed for the 21st century. ## Download You can either build from source (see Building) or installed a pre-compiled binary/executable: | Windows | macOS | Linux | | :-----------: | :-----------: | :-----------: | | [Download][1] | [Download][2] | [Download][3] | [1]: https://staging.vihan.org/VSL/vsl.exe [2]: https://staging.vihan.org/VSL/macos/vsl [3]: https://staging.vihan.org/VSL/linux/vsl ## Changes Git revision history is a mess but checkout CHANGELOG.md for detailed devleopment information. ## Building Building isn't _too_ diffiult. Usually you'll want to install a pre-built binary but if you're feeling adventurous or just want to help build VSL (:D) building from source is simple: ```bash $ git clone --recursive https://github.com/vsl-lang/VSL $ npm install $ npm run build ``` Do note, branch of the `develop` branch to make changes. All PRs go there. Other commands: ``` $ npm run coverage # Generates testing coverage reports $ npm test # Runs all tests $ npm run dev # Development build $ npm run docs # Make docs $ npm run lint # Lint code and make sure not crap ``` Do note you don't need to generate docs unless you want them for yourself because the CI will automatically generate docs. ## Development Info - Docs are located [here](https://preview.c9users.io/somebody1234/node-vsl/docs/index.html). - A bunch of READMEs are located in the dirs which do more complex things ## Problem Today they are quite a few languages, some popular ones you may of heard of are: - Python - Java - JavaScript - C/C++ and while these are all great and well (and have worked). Here are the things one _wants_ from a programming language: - Portability (C/C++ lack here) - Ease of Use (Java & C/C++ lack here, but arguable) - Rapid prototyping (Java, C/C++, and even JS ES2015+) - Saftey: type, memory, etc. (JS & Python lack) - Bare-metal speed (yeah...) - Powerful and close-to-hardware (JS, Python, and Java lack) So VSL aims to solve _all_ of these problems - **Portability**: By leveraging the [LLVM](http://llvm.org/) bytecode engine VSL can compile to almost all targets and is designed for simple compatibility with existing C projects. - **Fast**: Due to careful design and implementation choices, VSL compiles to very similar ASM to what something written in a low-level language such as C would produce. - **Safe**: By using syntax sugar, and powerful type-negotiation, VSL has one of the best type deduction algorithms. Combined with low compilation overhead, VSL can generate code with bare minimum boilerplate and guarunteed saftey at compile-time. - **Powerful**: VSL uses high-level syntax to be able to write code that works for all types of programmers, whether you are functional, OO, scripting, or low-level engineer. Through both high-level interfaces for low-level functions, you can use VSL for tasks low-level such as read/writing bits from a serial port to running a server. - **Reliability**: through bindings of reliable, trusted, and industry-standard libraries such as libcurl, and libc backends, VSL has powerful low-level pointer interopability and the power of full OO-classes. ## Examples VSL functions both as a scripting and a full-blown language so two alterntaives are given for all programs. That said, they are many more ways to write many of these programs, neither more correct than the other. ### Hello, World! ```python print("Hello, World") ``` ```swift func main(args: String[]) { print("Hello, World!") } ``` ### Fizzbuzz ```haskell let fizzbuzz :: (of: Int) -> String fizzbuzz(i where i % 3, i % 5) -> "FizzBuzz" fizzbuzz(i where i % 3) -> "Fizz" fizzbuzz(i where i % 5) -> "Buzz" fizzbuzz(i) -> String(for: i) ```