The Mlatu Programming Language

Mlatu is a statically typed, stack-based functional programming language designed for simplicity, speed, and safety.

Very experimental: contributions welcome, but please don't use this in production. If you wish to contribute see here for more information.

I make announcements, discuss the languaage, and am available to answer questions on this Discord channel.

Examples

Here's a naive recursive fibonacci function:

define fib (Int -> Int) {
  -> n;
  if (n < 2) {
    1
  }
  else {
    (n - 2) fib + (n - 1) fib
  }
}

20 fib print

Here's the definition of or in common/list.mlt, which demonstrates a more functional style, as well as some of the functions available out of the gate in the prelude.

define or (List[Bool] -> Bool) {
  true \(|) (fold_left)
}

See the /examples folder for more examples.

Installation and Usage

Installation

These installation instructions presume you have the Haskell Tool Stack installed. If you don't you can install it here.

Via stack:

git clone https://github.com/brightly-salty/mlatu.git
cd mlatu
stack install

Note: cabal install should also work.

Usage

The Mlatu programming language

Usage: mlatu COMMAND

Available options:
  -h,--help                Show this help text

Available commands:
  repl                     Start the interactive REPL
  check                    Checks Mlatu files for correctness without running
                           them
  fmt                      Formats Mlatu files prettily
  run                      Runs Mlatu files

Type //help in the interactive REPL for command options.

Miscellany

"Mlatu" is the Lojban word for "cat", referencing Cat by Christopher Diggins, Kitten by Jon Purdy, and the fact that Mlatu is a concatenative programming language.

"Mlatu" is pronounced "melatoo".

The source is based with gratitude off of the source of Kitten by Jon Purdy.

Mlatu is licensed under the Peace Public License v0.0+ available here. The canonical version is located at https://github.com/brightly-salty/peace-license