Nu (programming language)

Nu

Paradigm	structured, imperative, object-oriented
Appeared in	2007
Designed by	Tim Burks
Developer	Tim Burks
Stable release	0.3.3 ({{|2008|12|03}})
Typing discipline	dynamic
Influenced by	LISP, Objective-C, Ruby
License	Apache License, v. 2.0
Website	Programming Nu

Nu is an interpreted object-oriented programming language, with a LISP-like syntax, created by Tim Burks as an alternative scripting language to program Mac OS X through its Cocoa API.

There is also a language implementation for Linux, and the iPhone.

The language was first announced at C4[1], the conference for indie Mac developers hold on August 2007.

Example code

This Nu code defines a simple complex numbers class.

<source lang="lisp">

(class Complex is NSObject

 (ivar (double) real
       (double) imaginary)

 (- initWithReal:(double) x imaginary:(double) y is
   (super init)
   (set @real x)
   (set @imaginary y)
   self))

</source>

The example is a basic definition of a complex number (it just defines the instance variables, and a method to initialize the object). It evidences the similarity between the Nu code and the equivalent Objective-C code; it evidences also the similarity with Ruby.

See also

• F-Script
• MacRuby
• RubyCocoa

External links

• Nu home page
• The C4 conference talk of Nu
• Google Groups
• GitHub repository