Files
wren/README.md
Bob Nystrom 931d9ca4d3 Reorganize the language guide.
- Rename "Expressions" -> "Method Calls".
- Organize "Types" and "Language" into a single linear narrative.
- Mobile-specific navigation to handle the longer guide.
- Rename "Fibers" -> "Concurrency".
- Get rid of duplicate stuff about signatures in "Classes".
- Add next/prev links to each page in the guide.
- Move "Contributing" and "Community" up to the top level.
- Move the precendence table to a separate "Grammar" page.
- Lots of other little stuff.
2015-11-07 11:09:04 -08:00

2.3 KiB

Wren is a small, fast, class-based concurrent scripting language

Think Smalltalk in a Lua-sized package with a dash of Erlang and wrapped up in a familiar, modern syntax.

System.print("Hello, world!")

class Wren {
  flyTo(city) {
    System.print("Flying to ", city)
  }
}

var adjectives = Fiber.new {
  ["small", "clean", "fast"].each {|word| Fiber.yield(word) }
}

while (!adjectives.isDone) System.print(adjectives.call())
  • Wren is small. The VM implementation is under 4,000 semicolons. You can skim the whole thing in an afternoon. It's small, but not dense. It is readable and lovingly-commented.

  • Wren is fast. A fast single-pass compiler to tight bytecode, and a compact object representation help Wren compete with other dynamic languages.

  • Wren is class-based. There are lots of scripting languages out there, but many have unusual or non-existent object models. Wren places classes front and center.

  • Wren is concurrent. Lightweight fibers are core to the execution model and let you organize your program into an army of communicating coroutines.

  • Wren is a scripting language. Wren is intended for embedding in applications. It has no dependencies, a small standard library, and an easy-to-use C API. It compiles cleanly as C99, C++98 or anything later.

If you like the sound of this, let's get started. You can even try it in your browser! Excited? Well, come on and get involved!

Build Status