Little is a statically typed, C-like scripting language
little-lang.org
little-lang.org
It's unusual because it keeps C's types, so you get compile time type checking (with some run time checks). In particular you get structs which are nicer than the typical scripting language approach of using a hash where you want a struct. The structs tend to be commented, I learn a lot about a program by reading the struct declarations.
It's based on Tcl which might seem a little strange these days, but back in the day we were a self funded startup (18 years later, still no VC money) and there was just no way I could have paid for native guis on all the platforms. So the Tk part of Tcl/Tk was essential. I love what Tk can do, even today. But Tcl syntax drives me crazy unless I'm living in it every day.
Little has been pleasant to use, ctags just work, indent just works (until it hits "if (buf =~ /regexp/)", I think that trips it up because it doesn't know that // is like ""), c mode in editors tend to just work.
If it gains any traction I could imagine that someone tries to make a gcc --little dialect, I'd be all over that idea.
It's been fun developing the language, here's hoping someone has fun using it.
He did what every crazy boss does, he funded a programming language.
These bits made me laugh (and feel some small amount of envy). Is it correct to presume they're referring to you here?
I get the envy, it is nice being able to fund a language. I feel vaguely guilty like I was scratching my own itch, because that's exactly what was going on. I'll feel less guilty if someone else says "hey, cool, looks like C" and plays with it.
I think if I did it all over again I'd open source it sooner.
I understand why you did it with your VCS, but with a scripting language? I would have made it open source sooner, too. Then again, as the business owner, there are always other angles that need to be considered.
The other aspect was that I wanted the language design to settle down before open sourcing it. I wasn't interested in a "design by internet" language, my experience is that stuff that comes out of one mind tends to hang together better. I probably waited longer than I needed to :)