Yassl: Scripting language : Language Overview

Yassl: Scripting language Language Overview

5.2 Language Overview

Yassl is a non object oriented language with a syntax that looks somewhat like C. Some of its features:

Functions are available as regular types, and can be passed around and embedded in widgets.
Implements lexical scoping, stolen from Scheme.
Variables are typed (but at this point, the interpreter does no static type checking.)
Eval is not directly supported, but an instance of a Yassl interpreter can be created from within a Yassl script, and you can evaluate expressions in the context of the new interpreter instance.

There are two components to the yassl system.

The interpreter: This is implemented through the yassl package, and is simply the engine that runs yassl scripts, and could later be just a program to generate java bytecode.
Support classes: These are other java classes that add functionality to the language. Most of the demonstrations here are functions to use the AWT a little easier, and to manipulate them in applets as widgets.

Here are some example programs to show how it could be used in a UI development environment. Be prepared to wait for a while when the interpreter is loaded. The interpreter runs as an applet, and can take a while to get to your machine.

5.2.1 Button demo
- 5.2.1.1 Inline scripts
- 5.2.1.2 Separate scripts
5.2.2 Simple functions in yassl
5.2.3 Lexical binding
5.2.4 Simple spreadsheet

KB Sriram
Comments, bug reports: kbs@sbktech.org

Revised: Sat May 25 02:58:14 1996
URL: http://www.sbktech.org/yas_lang.html