anorth / expl

An expression language for rapid, explorable, explainable programming [WIP]

expl

An embeddable expression language for modelling and exploring.

This is a very early work in progress.

Goals:

• An accessible syntax to analysts and modellers, without feeling too much like "programming" (think spreadsheet formulae)
• Easily embeddable in applications and other programming environments
• Fast numerical calculation, vector/array manipulation, tabular data
• No efficiency penalty for natural expression of a solution
• Support for explorable interfaces and extreme debug-ability

Approach:

• Limited goals, not a full-featured application development language
• High level of abstraction enabling extreme compiler restructuring
• Purely functional, immutable, strictly-typed, but "blue-collar" pragmatism

For now, I'm exploring these ideas via an interpreter, but the goal is to JIT-compile.

Inspirations: Spreadsheets, Pandas, Julia, Wolfram, JQ

Expl is not a very good name. I'm looking for a new one.