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Reintroducing Dip – My take on a programming language for beginners

8 points| raghav_nautiyal | 5 years ago

Hello. A few weeks ago, I had posted a very basic version of a programming language that I put together, called Dip. I was blown away by the kind and honest feedback given by the community, and have worked on it, adding examples of Dip code so users can get to know the language, adding a learning path for beginners so that they can learn how to code in a streamlined fashion, and also changing the site to match the language’s identity.

So now, I (re)introduce you to Dip, a small project I’ve been working on, which also happens to be a programming language targeting beginners. I’ve tried to make the syntax easy to understand, and also tried to make the language easy to read and write for complete beginners. I've tried to eliminate a few issues the Python language has (such as indentation and error messages), though it is up to you to see to what extent Dip succeeds. I’ve also tried to allow Dip to communicate with Python, so users are not limited to Dip’s features, because the way I see it, Dip is not meant to compete with Python, and does not aim to, but I think Dip’s simpler syntax and error messages might be useful to beginners in some cases and get them up the learning ladder, and I would love to see Dip being used as a stepping stone by the Python community, learning the ropes using Dip, and then moving on to Python.

You can look at Dip’s website at dip-lang.org.

I would love your feedback on how I could improve the language.

Also, if you wish to contribute to this small venture of mine, feel free to help me with the core language or the site on Github.

11 comments

[+] deepaksurti|5 years ago|reply

This looks great.

It will be super useful for beginners if you integrate Dip in the browser in your Learning path tutorial. You already give that option in the Install options.

[+] raghav_nautiyal|5 years ago|reply

Thanks! I'm already on it!

[+] raghav_nautiyal|5 years ago|reply

Done! :)

[+] kleer001|5 years ago|reply

This looks super adorable. Have you gotten it into the hands of learners yet? What do you see as your customer demographic?

[+] raghavnautiyal|5 years ago|reply

Thanks for the feedback! Yes, I'm trying to get it to learners, and I think beginners to programming are the people who'll find most value out of this, as they can learn the basics with Dip and then move on to Python.