Cognate

cognate-lang.github.io

Cognate is a small, dynamic, concatenative language for functional programming. Cognate aims to express complex programs in a simple and readable way through its unique syntax, which emphasises embedding comments into statements. This makes programs very readable and helps a programmer better express their intentions.

Cognate's compiler ignores words beginning with lowercase letters, allowing comments and code to be interwoven. This 'informal syntax' being optional allows Cognate to be verbose where detail is needed and concise where it isn't.

Cognate is a stack-oriented programming language similar to Forth or Factor, except expressions are evaluated right to left. This gives the expressiveness of concatenative programming as well as the readability of prefix notation. Expressions can be delimited at arbitrary points, allowing them to read as sentences would in English.

CognaC (the Cognate Compiler) compiles Cognate sources directly into C. This produces very small and rather fast binaries, allowing Cognate to outperform most dynamic languages. This also makes Cognate a candidate for scripting in embedded environments, such as microcontrollers.

Cognate borrows from other concatenative languages, but also adds unique features of its own.

• Point-free functions
• Operation chaining
• Multiple return values
• Combinator oriented programming
• Predicate pattern matching
• Natural language programming
• Gradual typing with inference