Cobra (programming language)

Cobra

Paradigm(s)	Multi-paradigm: object-oriented
Appeared in	2006
Designed by	Chuck Esterbrook
Developer	Cobra Language LLC
Stable release	2010-10-18 (October 18, 2010 (2010-10-18))
Typing discipline	strong, static, dynamic, inferred
Influenced by	Python, Eiffel, C#, Objective-C
OS	Microsoft .NET, Mono
License	MIT
Usual filename extensions	.cobra
Website	http://cobra-language.com/

Cobra is an object-oriented programming language produced by Cobra Language LLC. Cobra is designed by Chuck Esterbrook, and runs on the Microsoft .NET and Mono platforms. It is strongly influenced by Python, C#, Eiffel, Objective-C, and other programming languages. It supports both static and dynamic typing. It has first class support for unit tests and contracts. It has lambda expressions, closures, list comprehensions and generators. Cobra provides both rapid development and performance in the same language.

Cobra is an open-source project; it was released under the MIT License on February 29, 2008.

Updates are posted to the Cobra news forum with progress on features, fixes, documentation and related projects since the last update.

Features

• Object-oriented:
  • Namespaces
  • Classes, interfaces, structs, extensions, enumerations
  • Methods, properties, indexers
  • Mixins, extension methods
  • Generics, attributes
• Quality control:
  • Contracts, assertions
  • Unit tests, docstrings
  • Compile-time nil-tracking
• Expressiveness:
  • Static and dynamic binding
  • List, dictionary, and set literals
  • in and implies operator
  • for expressions
  • Slicing
  • Interpolated strings
  • Compile-time type inference
  • Lambdas and closures
• General productivity:
  • Exception handling
  • Postmortem exception report
  • Garbage collection
• Scripting conveniences:
  • Clean syntax
  • Dynamic binding
  • One-step run
  • Shebang line (#!)
• Miscellaneous:
  • Doc tool (cobra -doc)
  • Syntax highlighting tool (cobra -highlight)

Examples

The following examples can be entered into a file and run using cobra <filename>.

Classic Hello world example:

class Hello
    def main
        print 'Hello, World'

Simple class:

class Person
 
    var _name as String
    var _age as int
 
    cue init(name as String, age as int)
        _name, _age = name, age
 
    def toString as String is override
        return 'My name is [_name] and I am [_age] years old'

External links

• Official website
• The Cobra blog by Chuck Esterbrook
• Cobra News Index